by Parker Bilal
As the sun began to sink into the hills to the west, he washed his face and put on his shoes and jacket. The lobby was quiet for once. He circled the hotel, first in one direction and then spinning on his heels without warning to reverse his steps. Nothing unusual jumped out at him – no face, no hint of warning. He drank hot, bitter coffee at a street stall that sold roasted corn on the cob. When he was quite satisfied that no one was following him, he took a shortcut he had discovered earlier that brought him to the entrance of an alleyway facing the Mukarrameh call shop and internet café. Redbeard was still there behind the counter; if he remembered Makana he gave no sign of it. He chose the same booth as last time. Closing the door, he clamped the receiver on his shoulder and reached into his pocket to light a cigarette while dialling the number he’d memorised.
Marcus Winslow was not happy to hear any of his news.
‘Do you think it is connected?’
‘From where I’m standing everything seems connected,’ said Makana.
‘It could just be a random attack.’
‘It’s possible.’ Makana heard Winslow talking to someone else in the room with him. Then his voice came back. ‘Look, this could mean your cover is blown. Have there been any indications that anyone is onto you?’
‘I’ve been careful, but of course it’s possible,’ said Makana.
‘It’s important you stick to the routine. Behave as normally as possible.’
‘How sure are you that Nizari is still here?’
‘Of course he’s there.’ Winslow sounded impatient.
‘Well, he doesn’t seem pressed to come forward.’
‘He may just be being cautious. That’s why you have to be patient.’
‘How long?’ asked Makana. ‘I mean, how many more days before we have to conclude he’s not coming?’
‘A day, maybe two. He’s cautious, afraid. Give him time to trust you, to find his way.’
Winslow made it sound like they were fishing for some rare creature. Through the little porthole in the door, Makana could watch the front of the shop. He studied the glowing tip of his cigarette.
‘We’re sure there’s no other way of contacting him?’ It was a question Makana suspected Winslow already knew the answer to, but he asked it all the same.
‘If there was, you can assume I would have used it by now.’ Winslow sighed. ‘Look, I know this is not easy, but we’re close, very close.’
‘Well, if you’re happy to pay me just to stay here and wait, then I have no problems with that.’
‘Two more days, that’s as far as we’ll let this thing run. As for the passport, I’ll get onto finding you a replacement as soon as I put the phone down.’
‘How far do you trust Nadir Sulayman?’
‘As much as I trust any businessman.’
‘He wasn’t happy when I showed him the money,’ said Makana. ‘He wants more.’
‘I’ll talk to him. In the meantime, you have some extra money at the hotel. Give him a couple more thousand and we’ll see if that quietens him down.’
Makana considered telling Winslow about the woman at the mosque, but he wasn’t sure how to begin. He was no longer sure if he was imagining things. Maybe he was getting paranoid.
‘Everything else is all right?’
‘A man tried to strike up a conversation with me today, at the rendezvous point.’
Winslow’s tone sharpened. ‘What kind of man?’
Makana took a long drag on his cigarette. One of the young men sitting behind a computer looked over his screen at him. Makana thought he recognised him from the last time he had been in. He turned his back and carried on talking.
‘A businessman. Northern European. Dutch.’
‘What did he want?’
‘Idle conversation, or that was how it appeared.’
‘Did he give a name?’
‘Henk Sneefliet.’
‘I’ll look into it. In the meantime, you must take no chances. If you ever see him again you must assume it’s not a coincidence.’
That much Makana had managed to work out by himself. The young man by the computer was now eating a packet of roasted melon seeds, spitting the husks onto the floor at his feet while staring at the screen in front of him.
‘I was thinking about Nizari,’ said Makana, turning his attention back to the call. ‘Just how would a scientist survive in a foreign city without money or papers?’
‘He’s a resourceful man.’
‘What I mean is, does he have friends here? People who know him? Someone he could go to for help?’
‘Not so far as we know.’
There was a rap on the door of the booth and the door was heaved open by Redbeard. You didn’t need to speak Turkish to understand that he was unhappy about Makana smoking. Lifting a hand in apology, Makana dropped the cigarette to the floor and ground it out with his shoe, kicking it into the corner to join the handful of butts that were piled there. The man moved on, muttering to himself loudly about the state of the world. The melon-seed man was again staring sullenly at him from across the room. Makana wondered at the wisdom of using the same place twice in succession. He needed a new set of skills; he was used to being the hunter, not the quarry.
‘Call me again tomorrow. I need to know how things are going. And I’ll arrange a temporary replacement for your passport to be issued by the British Consulate for collection tomorrow.’ Winslow was silent for a moment. ‘When you get there, you may find that there is some interest in yourself and your reason for being in Istanbul. They might even ask about me. Better to say nothing. It’s more secure that way. We can’t risk any kind of leak. Do you understand?’
‘I think so,’ said Makana.
‘It’s nothing to worry about. They won’t press you.’
Hanging up the telephone, Makana fought the urge to light another cigarette while he thought for a moment and then dialled another Cairo number. Sami was at his desk in the Masry Info Media Collective.
‘Ah, our roving investigator! How is life in Turkey? I hear the women are extraordinary, but don’t let Rania know I said so.’
‘I need your help on something.’ Makana explained to Sami what he needed.
‘I’ll get Ubay onto it straight away. How do I get in contact with you?’
‘You don’t. I’ll have to call you back.’
‘Okay, then give us a day. This time tomorrow?’ Sami paused. ‘Oh, and Rania says be careful. Whatever it is you are doing out there.’
‘Tell her I’m always careful. I’ll be back before you know it.’
‘Tomorrow, then.’
‘Tomorrow.’
Makana hesitated, still holding the receiver. He felt like calling Jehan, if only to comfort her, but he knew it wasn’t wise. Best to have as few threads as possible leading out from him. Contacting anyone was potentially putting them at risk. He still had no solid idea of how big this thing was. Redbeard’s scowl did not alter when Makana told him to keep the change. Some people were determined not to have a nice day.
At the entrance to Nadir Sulayman’s building Makana paused to survey the street. If someone was following him they were doing so very discreetly. The stairs were dark and had a fetid smell about them. He emerged onto the upper gallery to find it gloomy and deserted. Across the elevated walkway he glimpsed the yellow light over the doorway. This time when he rang the bell a buzzer let him in. Makana made his way across the entrance hall and through the heavy drapes to find that Sulayman was not in his office. That left him surveying the chaos until the sound of a toilet flushing came from somewhere to his right. A door opened and Nadir Sulayman appeared.
‘Please, don’t wait to be invited. Have a seat.’
‘There seems to have been some misunderstanding about the money,’ Makana began, but Sulayman held up a hand. Marcus Winslow must have got through to him quickly.
‘Please, do not apologise. The mistake is mine.’ Compared with the last time they’d met he seemed preoccupied, as if the
money was the least of his worries. He sank down into the big leather chair behind the desk and started rummaging for his cigarettes, while talking in a distracted fashion.
‘How do you like Istanbul? It’s great, isn’t it? Did you find a good place to eat? You must try the fish, much better than Cairo, I can assure you. I was there a few years ago, and frankly, I was disappointed.’ As he talked Sulayman lit a Marlboro with a slim black lighter and blew a plume of smoke into the air before setting lighter and cigarettes firmly in the centre of the desk in front of him, no doubt in a bid to keep them handy amidst all the paperwork.
‘Actually, you know what? Where are my manners? I take you myself, to one of the best fish restaurants in town.’
‘Is that a good idea, for us to be seen together?’
‘It’s perfect,’ Sulayman grinned. ‘Confirms that you’re here for business. I deal in everything, including agriculture machinery. You want an old tractor, I get you one, and besides’ – he threw up a hand dismissively – ‘we go late. Nobody sees us. Afterwards, I take you to a nice place where we have a few drinks, maybe even we are lucky to meet some girls, eh? What do you say?’ He frowned. ‘You’re not a Muslim, are you?’ he asked, dismissing his question straight away. ‘Of course, you are. We all are, right? I mean, you’re not a good Muslim, right? Ha ha ha.’
‘I’d be happy to join you,’ said Makana.
‘Excellent! Then that’s settled. Why don’t we say we meet here, tomorrow night? Nine thirty. Is a good time, no, not so early. We have a little raki and we talk while they prepare the fish. I promise you will never forget it.’ Sulayman looked at his watch. ‘Unfortunately, I have a prior arrangement, otherwise …’ He held his hands up in apology as he got to his feet to walk Makana to the door.
A light rain accompanied Makana back to his hotel. The air felt warm and muggy. It was hard to make sense of his contact’s change of heart. Could a simple phone call from Winslow have been enough? he wondered. There was something about Sulayman’s chatty theatricality that had sounded forced. Had Winslow offered him a lot more money, or was there some other explanation?
In the hotel lobby he picked up an English-language newspaper from a rack. Under the headline ‘Living with Fear’ he found another article on the recent spate of murders. Police sources, one paper declared, had confirmed unofficially that they believed the perpetrator to be a foreigner, though no explanation was given as to why this should be so.
There was an envelope waiting at reception. It contained a couple of newspaper clippings and a note from Sami’s journalist friend, Kursad: ‘Perhaps this is what you are looking for?’
The article was in Turkish, but Kursad had included a brief summary of the story. There had been an accident involving an ambulance and an overnight bus. A woman in the ambulance was killed. She had not been identified, but she didn’t work for the ambulance service. The ambulance had been stolen from outside a hospital. There was evidence that others had been in the vehicle at the time of the crash but they had fled the scene.
The photographs showed a mangled ambulance lying on its side, the driver’s cab badly crushed. Inset was a photograph of the dead woman. Makana recognised Nadia Razvan, the waitress from Marbella who had taken such an interest in Ayman Nizari.
On the balcony of his room he smoked a cigarette, listening to the distant wail of sirens and cars honking their endless protest. He now knew how Nizari had managed to get free of his Israeli handlers. Tomorrow, if he was lucky, everything would be resolved. Nizari would appear at the Iskander Grillroom, and the consulate would provide him with a new travel document. As he prepared for bed, he wondered if he might be accused of being overly optimistic.
Chapter Eleven
Istanbul Day Three
Koçak was waiting patiently for Makana again the next morning, studying the elaborate marble ceiling of the lobby with a dreamy look. He jumped to his feet when Makana appeared.
‘Effendim, today Topkapi, yes?’
Makana had a couple of hours to kill before the next potential rendezvous with Ayman Nizari at the Iskander, but while it made sense to act out the routine of a visitor with too much time on his hands, the prospect of traipsing round the old palace surrounded by picture-snapping tourists did not appeal to him.
‘Let’s just drive around a bit.’
‘Drive?’ Koçak’s face darkened momentarily as if this posed a terrible challenge, before his expression lifted. ‘Okay. No problem.’
As he drove, Koçak offered his views on everything from the Pope to the qualities of his favourite football team Beşiktaş, versus their rivals Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe. Makana let him talk. He smoked and watched the buildings go by, wondering idly if he was perhaps missing an opportunity to explore the city, one that might not come again any time soon. Perhaps if he did not have so many other things on his mind.
He tilted the wing mirror so as to watch the cars behind them. Was this just from habit? He couldn’t shake off the idea that he was being followed, yet he could not really say by whom. He assumed that Winslow would have people somewhere, shadowing him, but they were either very good, or they didn’t exist – he wasn’t sure which ought to worry him more. Then there was Nizari, his friends or handlers, along with Abu Hilal, the Mossad and other parties with an interest in the scientist. The woman at the Blue Mosque. The clumsy European at the restaurant. And then the mugging. All in all it didn’t add up to much more than a cloud of unease – nothing he could really put his finger on. Yet he couldn’t dismiss the feeling that his every move was leading him deeper into a dangerous place. All he could hope was to have enough time to take action when matters finally revealed themselves.
At a stall overlooking the Marmara Sea they stopped for çay and kokoreçi – a sandwich of lamb intestines. The entrails were wound into long sausages that turned slowly on a spit, dripping fat. He suspected this was something of a test on Koçak’s part, but Makana had eaten worse. The sandwich was tasty, if a little greasy. Koçak had other things on his mind. He stabbed a finger at the front page of a newspaper pinned to the side of the stall. It showed an artist’s sketch that looked like it was based on a photofit.
‘Karakoncolos.’
‘What is that?’
Koçak pulled an ugly face. ‘Very bad thing. Killing people.’
‘Is this the murders that have been happening, the body they pulled out of the sea yesterday?’
‘Crazy person.’
‘Is it a man or a woman, do they know?’
Looking at the photofit picture it was hard to tell. Either the artist lacked talent or the witnesses they had were too vague.
‘Is karakoncolos,’ shrugged Koçak. ‘Monster. Man, woman, no matter. If you see it, you are dead.’
‘Right.’ The killer had been transformed into a figure of myth. Whoever was committing these murders, they were certainly scaring people. Makana decided to change the subject. He pointed into the distance.
‘What are those?’
‘Prince Islands. Ottomans send bad people there.’
Makana recalled reading in the guidebook Winslow had slipped into his bag that Leon Trotsky had once been exiled on such an island near Istanbul. Perhaps this was it.
‘You like to visit bazaar?’ Koçak had cheered up.
‘Bazaar?’ The idea conjured up images of the Khan al-Khalili back in Cairo: crowded with tourists and enterprising Egyptians trying to seduce them with a smattering of phrases in English, French, German, Spanish, even Japanese.
‘Is very beautiful.’
‘I’m sure.’ Makana must have sounded less than enthusiastic, because Koçak only renewed his efforts to convince him.
‘Please, effendim, you must see. Best bazaar in whole world.’
Makana surrendered. He had nothing better to do, after all. A glance at his watch told him there was still time until the rendezvous.
‘Fine, let’s visit the bazaar.’
‘Excellent choice, sir. You will not regret. Y
ou can buy gifts for lady wife.’
The interior of the domed bazaar had been recently refurbished by the looks of things. It was bright and bustling. Crowds eddied by, bumping into one another, pausing to chat to friends and acquaintances, stopping to examine items of interest. There were tourists buying souvenirs, housewives dragging laden shopping trolleys and reluctant children behind them. The air was thick with the smell of spices, scented soaps and tanned leather. Makana wandered past bright mounds of chillis, aniseed, cloves and cumin, stacks of porcelain, chatty salesmen calling out their wares.
He found himself staring at a wall of mirrors of all sizes and shapes. They hung suspended in the air and stirred gently, swinging from side to side in the breeze that blew through the arched tunnels. One particular crescent-shaped mirror drew his attention. It was made of brass inscribed with curved shapes and squiggles. It reminded him of one that he’d had long ago: a trinket that hung from the rearview mirror of his car, something he hadn’t thought about in years. As he stretched out a hand towards it, a breeze sweeping through the arcades caused the mirror to swivel out of reach. In that instant he saw something that caused his heart to skip a beat.
A glimpse, no more, but it was enough. In disbelief, he spun round, searching for the face he thought he had just seen. Swerving fast through a party of tourists, he burst into an open space and came to an abrupt halt. He saw the chequered boards that he had glimpsed in the reflection; chessboards and backgammon sets decorated with mother-of-pearl inlay. The doorway was empty now. He peered inside, jostling a startled shopkeeper. Nothing. There was no sign of the person he was convinced he had just seen; someone he hadn’t seen in over fifteen years, though not a day had passed in all those years when he had not thought of her.
Making his way back through the crowds, Makana stumbled into shoulders, backs, people walking behind him, against him. He forced them aside, clearing a path, ignoring their protests, chasing every shadow, until he was out in the sunlight and Koçak was waving to him.
‘Everything all right, effendim?’