On the Bone

by Barbara Nadel

  ‘Oh, so it disappears into James Bond land. Great. You know this could be connected to an investigation I’m involved with …’

  The lawyer moved towards İkmen, quickly. He lowered his voice. ‘Your cannibal case has nothing to do with Mr Myskow,’ he said.

  İkmen felt his face wrinkle into a sneer. ‘I don’t suppose I have to ask how you know about that, do I?’ he said.

  ‘You don’t and you won’t,’ the lawyer said. Then he walked back to his car and drove away.

  İkmen and Kerim Gürsel watched the car leave. İkmen lit a cigarette.

  ‘What do the security services have to do with Boris Myskow?’ Kerim said.

  ‘What have they to do with so many things they get themselves involved with?’ İkmen replied. ‘I don’t know. But I don’t suppose Mr Myskow per se is the cause of their concern. That’s more likely to be what he’s serving.’

  ‘The boar?’

  ‘Contentious, theologically unsound and possibly contaminated. Not that we will ever know now,’ İkmen said. ‘National security, Kerim. Oh, how very important and dangerous that catch-all term is! Is Myskow selling contaminated boar to enemies of the state, or is he feeding those he shouldn’t with his porcine delights? Has he now in fact turned his attention to the delights of human flesh? Who knows?’

  Kerim moved closer to his boss. ‘His lawyer knew about our case.’

  ‘Yes. But only because our spooky colleagues told him. Just in case we made life a little difficult for him. Arsehole.’

  İkmen began to walk back to the station. Kerim followed.

  ‘Do you really think Myskow was also serving human flesh, sir?’

  ‘If I hadn’t thought that, I would’ve probably left him alone with his wild boar,’ İkmen said.

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Yes. But now, with higher powers in tow, Myskow would seem to be a dead end. I’ll gripe and bitch to Commissioner Teker and we’ll have to see what she says. I’m certainly not going to let Dr Sarkissian’s unknown male be eaten in vain.’

  He needed carbs.

  ‘I need carbs!’ he said as he bounced into the kitchen and headed for the fridge. Two henna parties one after the other had shattered him.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

  It was Ziya, the tattooed biker, whose dad had been a major in the army before he’d been put in prison for crimes against the state.

  ‘I’m getting myself some food,’ Gül said.

  Ziya came through the doorway that led out to what he’d been told was an old washroom.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Chasing rats,’ Ziya said.

  ‘Oh God, do we have rats down here?’ Gül cringed.

  ‘There’s droppings in the garden,’ Ziya said.

  ‘Is it OK to get something from the fridge?’ Gül said. ‘I need carbs after all the dancing, and I’ve got some leftover pasta in there.’

  ‘There won’t be rats in the fridge, Gül.’ Ziya smiled.

  Gül opened the fridge door. Every shelf was packed with food labelled with its owners’ names.

  ‘Oh my God, I don’t believe Meltem Hanım has got something as wicked as lokma!’

  Ziya laughed. Then he looked over his shoulder, nervously.

  ‘I’ll just take my pasta and go to my room,’ Gül said as he took his food out of the fridge. ‘Leave you to your macho animal-hunt thing.’

  ‘A rat is hardly a tiger.’

  ‘No, it’s worse,’ Gül said. ‘If a tiger bites you, you just die. If a rat nips you, you die too, just a long time afterwards. Filthy little bastards! Night.’

  And with a swish of chiffon and a rustle of sequins, he was gone. Ziya waited for a moment before he went back into the old bathhouse and took out the knife he’d been holding behind his back.

  Sometimes the only thing to do was to drink.

  ‘I don’t want to go to one of those designer bars in Beyoğlu,’ Teker told Cetin İkmen as they got into the taxi he’d ordered.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘No chance of that.’

  They ended up walking the last half-kilometre because the driver wouldn’t take them any further than the Syriani church on Karakurum Sokak. The district of Tarlabaşı still had a reputation for violence and drug dealing, even though it was currently under redevelopment.

  As they walked through streets populated by disaffected kids, transgender prostitutes and addicts high on bonzai, Teker was surprised at how many people İkmen acknowledged.

  ‘You’re popular.’

  He smiled. ‘What’s the point of alienating the sick and the desperate?’ he said. ‘They want happy lives, just like we do. Why should we be part of their very considerable problems?’

  The bar İkmen took her to was the front room of what had once been a considerable Greek mansion. It was dark, filled with smoke and the smell of rakı – the only drink on offer. Prostitutes, both male and female, and soldiers mixed with bonzai addicts keen to get even higher and a few old men all of whom claimed to have met Ataturk when they were children.

  İkmen called over to a middle-aged Kurd to bring them a bottle of rakı. ‘And clean glasses, Lütfü,’ he said. ‘My guest’s a lady.’

  ‘This must’ve been quite a place at one time,’ Teker said as she looked at the blackened classical friezes on the ceiling.

  ‘Many of our Ottoman Greek and Armenian citizens were wealthy business people and artisans,’ İkmen said. ‘Tarlabaşı was the place to live back in those days. Even as recently as the 1960s, some clung on. Inspector Süleyman’s Armenian nanny used to live in Tarlabaşı.’

  ‘How very Ottoman,’ she said. ‘I’m surprised he’s not parading around in a kaftan. Won’t he and his kind be ruling us all again soon?’

  İkmen smiled. ‘Now you know that’s not the point of the new Ottomanism, madam,’ he said. ‘That’s just window-dressing.’

  The rakı and a carafe of water arrived. The waiter gave the glasses a quick polish on his dirty apron and left.

  ‘As good as it gets here, I’m afraid, madam,’ İkmen said as he poured them both a large measure and then topped each glass up with water. The spirit became cloudy, just as it should be.

  Teker took a big slug. ‘You can drop the madam here,’ she said. ‘It’s Hürrem.’

  He smiled and offered her his hand. ‘Cetin.’

  She shook it.

  ‘We can talk in this place?’

  ‘Everyone’s too high, too old or too horny to care about us,’ İkmen said. ‘I come here a lot.’

  ‘To old Istanbul.’

  He knew what she meant. The ungentrified city that he loved. ‘Absolutely.’

  She drank some more rakı and lit a cigarette. ‘Talk to me, Cetin.’

  ‘I want to know why an American who breaks the law by sourcing illegal meat is being protected from on high,’ he said. ‘I’d also like to know how I’m meant to find whoever prepared, cooked and possibly murdered our unknown victim if I’m not to be allowed to follow up what could be a lead.’

  ‘Just because Myskow serves boar doesn’t necessarily mean he serves … other things.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t. But it might.’ İkmen drank. ‘It’s a well-known fact that a person’s latitude for acceptance of criminal behaviour often begins small, with wild boar for instance, and then gets bigger and more ambitious. Whoever prepared this “meat” did it well and will almost certainly have been paid handsomely for it. Mr Myskow is well known for breaking culinary boundaries; why not the ultimate taboo?’

  ‘Where are you in the investigation?’ she said.

  ‘CCTV footage places Ümit Kavaş on İstiklal, but there is no evidence of his visiting any café or restaurant. Not that I can categorically state that he didn’t. I just don’t have any evidence to support a restaurant visit. We’re focusing on Kavaş’s past at the moment, speaking to his family and friends. He was a Gezi supporter, very involved with alternative movements, particularly that squat in Karaköy.’
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  ‘The Art House.’

  ‘Yes. Bunch of hippies and arty types, as far as I can tell. The only thing to come out of that is an allegation of intimidation. But it does involve Ümit Kavaş.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The squatters and their friend Ümit have been targeted by kids they call “jihadis”. They reckon they come from Fatih …’

  ‘Would make sense.’

  ‘Hurling abuse – and stones. Giving the girls in the squat, particularly the covered ones, a hard time. They call them infidels and unbelievers and say that they’ll cut their heads off. The usual shit. Inspector Süleyman is investigating. Whatever one thinks about squatting, the squatters are intimidating no one. The kids from Fatih are. And, I’ll be honest, it’s a public relations exercise. A considerable proportion of the population feels, rightly or wrongly, abandoned by the police. We need to do something about that, in my opinion.’

  A thin boy sitting in a dark corner wound an arm around his transsexual companion’s neck. His skin was covered with sores. A sign of heavy bonzai use.

  Teker leaned across the table. ‘You will need to be careful,’ she said.

  ‘Hate crimes are illegal in this country,’ İkmen said.

  ‘Mmm.’

  Her lack of comment spoke volumes. Crimes based on hatred of someone’s race or religion were illegal. But crimes against some groups were not taken quite as seriously as they should be by certain officers. And some of those were senior to both İkmen and Teker.

  ‘You are walking on dangerous ground, Cetin,’ Teker said.

  ‘Where you put me, Hürrem.’

  The sound of a siren outside made everyone run to the one small window. İkmen checked it wasn’t their colleagues and then returned.

  ‘Ambulance,’ he said.

  Teker finished her first glass of rakı and poured herself a second. ‘You can’t touch Boris Myskow. Not with the kind of muscle he’s got behind him. And I doubt, to be frank with you, whether those who are protecting him are eating human meat.’

  ‘Do you? I don’t.’

  She smiled. ‘Can you imagine what would happen if they were?’

  ‘Yes, I can,’ he said. ‘I fantasise about similar scenarios all the time.’

  ‘Well you mustn’t,’ she said. ‘It’s important for all of us to be objective. Something like this could blow up in our faces and the faces of those people in the squat. You wish to win their trust. Do so. But be careful who you alienate at their expense.’

  ‘I won’t—’

  ‘A lot of offences are now considered to be acts of terrorism,’ she said. ‘Those squatters could be considered terrorists by certain pairs of eyes. I believe an old colleague of yours has been ingratiating himself by discovering a lot of terrorist activity on the south-eastern coast.’

  Both İkmen and Süleyman had worked with Inspector Metin İskender in the past. Always a stickler for procedure, he’d come from a poor background but had married a wealthy and successful woman, and at one time he’d looked set to become one of the department’s better detectives. But then he and his wife had moved, first to Ankara and then Metin alone had gone to Adana. There he’d been promoted. He’d worked hard, got in with what many regarded as the ‘right’ people. It was then that his wife had divorced him. Since that time he’d been the scourge of dissent in all its forms in the Adana area. Had he had some sort of ideological epiphany, or had he just lost his mind when his wife deserted him?

  ‘Tread carefully with the jihadi boys of Fatih,’ Teker continued. ‘These days they may not be simply zealous kids. And watch Boris Myskow, but from a distance.’

  ‘How do I do that?’

  ‘Carefully,’ she said. ‘It’s not up to me to tell you how to do your job, or even to know what you’re doing every minute of every day.’

  ‘So if I … we get caught …’

  ‘Don’t. Do what you have to do discreetly. Even within the department. I know you’re better than Mr Myskow’s protectors.’

  ‘I don’t have their power.’

  ‘But you are in charge of this investigation. If there is a trade in human flesh going on in this city, we need to know who’s doing it and arrest them. Irrespective of who they are, who they might know or how much money is involved. But we have to be cleverer than they are, and that is not as easy as you might think. Retain your contempt, that’s your right, but don’t show it. Play the game, but don’t. You know what I mean.’

  İkmen looked around the room at the lost souls of old Istanbul. ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘I will help you,’ she said. ‘Just don’t push your luck. In the meantime, I’ll think about other avenues we might explore.’

  ‘What kind of avenues?’

  Teker narrowed her eyes. ‘I’ll let you know,’ she said. ‘When I know.’

  Chapter 7

  His wife had gone to her sister’s house, and so he’d had to call her on her mobile.

  ‘They’re releasing our son’s body for burial tomorrow,’ he said. ‘You’d better come back. Arrangements will have to be made.’

  She exhibited no emotion. ‘I’ll be an hour,’ she said, and then she cut the connection.

  Abdullah Kavaş turned to the old man at his side. ‘You’ll come to the funeral.’

  ‘Of course.’

  The general shook his head.

  Brigadier Erol Korkmaz put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘You mustn’t blame yourself.’

  ‘How can I not?’ There were tears in his eyes. ‘Ümit was vulnerable. I should have protected him.’

  ‘He was also a man,’ the brigadier said. ‘And an idealist. A liberal. Not a nationalist.’

  ‘No, but …’ The general lit a cigarette. ‘We should not have been joking. We made light of it, which was wrong. There are no jokes now.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be smoking.’

  ‘Why not? What do I have to live for?’

  ‘Abdullah Bey, some comments were made, I believe, in a light-hearted manner, relating to the excavations at one of the Neolithic sites in Anatolia,’ the brigadier said. ‘About culinary practices amongst the early Anatolians.’

  ‘Ümit was not amused.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Deniz Bey …’

  ‘Abdullah Bey, what’s done is done. Deniz Bey … well, he did what he did. I know he upset your son.’

  ‘He’s too strident. Always has been.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that …’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘What was the point in prolonging the family’s agony? Especially once the commissioner had given her consent. We retain the stomach contents, which are our real interest.’

  Cetin İkmen looked red-eyed at his friend Arto Sarkissian. It had been many years since he’d had such a thundering hangover. When the Armenian had first seen him, he’d laughed. Now, however, they were being serious.

  ‘You’ve still got some DNA tests pending, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ Arto said. ‘Racial profile. Hopefully the meat wasn’t in Kavaş’s stomach too long to get a result. We’ll see. God, Cetin, were you drinking alone last night?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Even Arto didn’t need to know about his conversation with Teker, and he certainly needed to be spared the details about what had happened after their alcohol binge. İkmen had ended up sleeping in the bar under a table. When he’d woken up, Teker had been nowhere to be seen. He’d only encountered her, bright as spring and clean as mountain dew, when he’d arrived at the station. Either she had a powerful hangover cure or she was an awesome drinker.

  ‘You know you shouldn’t do it,’ Arto continued. ‘Not with your history.’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes. Can we please get back to Ümit Kavaş and his stomach contents?’

  That İkmen had experienced problems with alcohol in the past was well known. But that had come under control years ago.

  Arto shrugged. He’d said his piece. There was nothing to add. ‘What about missing persons?’ h
e said.

  ‘What about them? We have some, most of whom are male, and we’re working through them. Any one of them could be our victim at the moment. If or when you get me some more information …’

  ‘I know, a narrower field.’

  ‘What we can’t find is a connection to Ümit Kavaş,’ İkmen said. ‘Not that he would necessarily know who he was consuming the night he died.’

  ‘Or even the true nature of what he was eating,’ Arto said. ‘From what I could make out, the sauce accompanying the meat was piquant to say the least.’

  ‘Strong?’

  ‘Interesting.’

  İkmen shook his head. ‘You go to some of these fancy new restaurants sometimes, don’t you?’

  ‘Not if I can help it, but yes, Maryam would like to go to places like Fish and Leb-i derya. Her friends go to those restaurants; they like to show each other pictures on their phones of the food they’ve eaten.’

  ‘Have you ever been to the restaurant at the Imperial Oriental Hotel?’

  ‘The one run by that American chef? No,’ he said. ‘Why?’

  İkmen wondered what to say next but then decided on nothing. What could he say? Not a lot. But Arto had known him all his life and so he would have got the hint.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yes, Boris Myskow is the American’s name,’ İkmen said. ‘Celebrity chef. Very innovative and very well connected.’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Arto sat back in his chair.

  Had he picked up on the gossip that some sort of celebrity had been brought in the previous evening? Did he know that some meat from a high-profile restaurant had been tested at the forensic laboratory? He almost certainly knew the latter, and he usually talked to everyone he came across when he visited police headquarters. And he knew a lot of people. Moreover, some of them were the type who noticed things. Bored constables like Yıldız, who had worked for the department for years, might not know who this or that famous person was, but he’d know a celebrity when he saw one, and he’d seen Myskow. When İkmen had shouted at the chef and his lawyer in the car park, a lot of people had seen Myskow.