Dark Water

by Parker Bilal

  ‘You’re asking the wrong person.’

  They both fell silent as the coffee arrived.

  ‘I got tired of his mood swings. He would get drunk and beat me up.’ Kara tossed her hair back. It was obviously a sore point. ‘In the end I managed to summon the courage to leave him.’

  ‘But you remain friends.’

  ‘Of a sort. He has useful contacts for me. This is a small town. You have to choose your enemies carefully.’

  ‘And Nadir wasn’t so careful?’

  ‘Nadir was too trusting. Always helping people.’ Kara hung her head to one side, looking up at him. ‘Boris always has his own best interests at heart. You have to be careful with someone like that.’

  ‘That sounds like a warning.’

  She pushed her coffee aside. ‘I need a proper drink.’ She waved a hand at the waitress. Over her shoulder Makana noticed a couple of young tourists sitting behind them, a few tables away. When he looked at them they grew very interested in the guidebook they were consulting.

  ‘This man you’re trying to help, how important is he?’

  ‘In the wrong hands he could be very dangerous.’

  ‘If you want my opinion,’ said Kara, ‘you’re out of your depth.’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  The waitress brought over a small bottle of Yeni Raki and a bowl of ice.

  ‘You should forget this whole thing and just leave,’ said Kara as she poured herself a drink.

  ‘I’m not sure how easy that is now.’

  ‘You trust the people you’re working for?’

  Makana wondered if he had ever truly trusted Marcus Winslow. He thought he had taken the job on as a kind of favour to his old chief. Now he wasn’t even sure who he was working for.

  ‘I wish I could answer that.’

  Kara gave a snort of laughter as she refilled her glass. ‘That’s not a good position to be in.’ Drinking seemed to do something to her eyes, making them somehow sadder and more desperate.

  ‘You and Nadir, was it personal?’

  ‘He had a wife and three children.’ Kara stared at the sea. ‘He would never have left them. He’d lost too much already.’

  Which wasn’t an answer, but perhaps it told Makana what he needed to know. He glanced back in the direction of the tourist couple. The woman had disappeared.

  ‘Nadir was terrified of going back to prison.’

  ‘You said he gave up all of his ideological beliefs.’

  ‘All he cared about was providing for his family.’ She was silent for a moment, studying him. ‘Somehow you don’t really seem the type.’

  ‘What type is that?’

  ‘The type to be involved in subterfuge. You have an honest face, but you’re what, Egyptian intelligence? Syrian?’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘All this talk about Israel.’

  ‘I’m here to help someone, as a favour to an old friend.’

  ‘Come on,’ Kara scoffed. ‘You can do better than that.’

  ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you.’

  ‘Nobody would believe you. You’re a wanted man. The Englishman who was murdered in the Pera Palas hotel. Did you kill him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So, who did it?’

  ‘Maybe it was the karakoncolos?’

  Kara smiled, a lopsided, endearing smile. ‘You know about that. People are saying the karakoncolos killed those people they keep fishing out of the sea. There’s some metaphor there about societies that refuse to face the facts.’

  ‘Maybe you should write about that.’ Makana glanced back at the table by the wall. The woman still had not returned. The man had now put down the guidebook. His glass of beer was empty and he swapped it for the other one, which was still untouched. A man with a thirst.

  The table was by the corner of the building, which meant that Makana could look straight through from one side to the other. Thin curtains covered the glass on both windows so that he could make out only the shadow of someone standing on the far side.

  ‘We should go.’

  ‘Why?’ Kara glanced over her shoulder. Through the flimsy drapes Makana saw the shadow move, a person stepping back. He dropped some money on the table and got to his feet.

  ‘I’m a little uneasy about staying anywhere for too long these days,’ he explained.

  They walked quickly, past a fire-eater and a stall selling candy floss. A police car prowled along the seafront, but the two officers inside were too busy talking to one another to notice them.

  ‘It’s probably safer for you to go on ahead. You don’t want to be caught with me.’

  She laughed. ‘What is that, some kind of Arab macho bullshit?’

  ‘I’m a wanted man, remember?’

  ‘I’ll take my chances. I’ve been around some pretty tough characters.’

  He probably couldn’t argue with that, he decided.

  They jogged over the wide road and cut up along a path that curved steeply into town. Kara moved off quickly down a sidestreet and Makana had to hurry to keep up. She seemed determined to lose any potential tails, and practised too. They turned left and right, walking in circles around whole blocks, dropping into shops, even going into a café and leaving through a rear exit. They wound up heading down a steep, winding valley of daunting buildings, all in varying states of decay.

  ‘I get this impression this isn’t the first time you’ve done this.’

  ‘I’m protective about my privacy.’

  They turned another corner and almost at once went up a couple of steps and in through the narrow entrance of an ashen, crumbling building. Plaster dust crunched under their feet. She shut the door behind him, and motioned for quiet. They paused, and listened. No footsteps came. As they stood there Makana could feel Kara Deniz’s gaze in the low light filtering in from outside. After a moment she nodded to herself and then moved on.

  He followed her along a hallway to a rear staircase that rose steeply into darkness. The stairs creaked as they climbed, and there was a strong smell of old varnish and paint. The second-floor landing was partly blocked by a stack of large framed canvases that rested against the wall. They were covered by a dirty tarpaulin daubed with paint. Kara Deniz leaned down to reach underneath for a key before squeezing by to unlock the door of her flat.

  It wasn’t so much a flat as an artist’s atelier. A row of high windows made up most of one side. There was a sleeping area in one corner occupied by an unmade bed surrounded by piles of books, newspapers and magazines. To the left was a kitchenette, illuminated by a low light over the counter that revealed bottles along with glasses, plates and polystyrene takeaway boxes. Domesticity clearly ranked low among Kara Deniz’s priorities.

  The centre of the room was a kind of living area. A chequered sofa with the stuffing escaping through the seams took up central stage. The sofa faced a small television set that stood on an uneven tower of books. Around this stood an easel, and a rough bench covered in tubes of oil paint, brushes, cans of thinner. Coasting through, picking up and then tossing aside a heap of post that had been lying on the floor, Kara picked up a remote control and snapped on the television to flip through the channels looking for news. Images of President Bush beaming on the White House lawn. A plume of smoke rising over Basra. The world went on.

  ‘Before you ask, it’s not mine. I’m not an artist. All this’ – hands on her hips, she surveyed the chaos that took up more than half her living space – ‘it’s all his. The stuff in the hall. He was supposed to clear all this shit out a week ago. Artists! What a waste of time and space.’ She turned on her heels and headed past the bed where a door led to a bathroom. ‘Make yourself at home. I’m going to take a shower.’

  Makana sat on the sofa and, encouraged by the overflowing ashtrays on every surface, smoked two cigarettes before Kara Deniz emerged wrapped in a cloud of steam and a skimpy towel. By then Makana’s feet were beginning to itch. He would have left, except that it wasn’t too smart an id
ea to go roaming the streets. He wasn’t keen about calling on Koçak again either – he’d done enough already, and Makana didn’t want to bring trouble on him and his family for trying to help.

  ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘No, thank you. I’m fine.’ Makana replied.

  ‘I don’t blame you,’ she laughed. ‘The state of this place would put anyone off.’

  The television was now showing images of flashing lights, somewhere that was recognisable as Istanbul. An excited commentator was narrating the action as an ambulance crew carried a body on a stretcher out of an alleyway. Makana recognised the waterfront scene from three nights ago. He thought he could make out the figure of Inspector Serkan standing in the background talking to someone.

  ‘They never get tired of running those clips, over and over.’

  She flipped off the television and tossed down the remote as she perched herself next to him on the arm of the sofa holding a piece of pizza and a bottle of beer which she offered him. He shook his head.

  ‘You don’t eat, you don’t drink,’ she said, licking her fingers thoughtfully. ‘What else don’t you do?’ Leaning over, she drew close and he pulled away. ‘Okay,’ she laughed. ‘That solves that issue.’ She was already on her feet again. Crossing to the window, she rested her head against the glass. ‘You’re the kind that always has someone waiting for them.’ She took another swig of her beer. ‘Me, I just get involved with the crazy ones. Psychopaths and artists!’ She snorted in disgust. Then she turned and crossed to the shelves of clothes.

  ‘You never told me,’ Makana began.

  ‘Never told you what?’

  Makana looked away as she dropped the towel and began to dress, quite unselfconsciously.

  ‘Why you didn’t follow up on the story of that ambulance crash.’

  ‘There was nothing to follow,’ she said over her shoulder.

  ‘The woman who was killed. Her name was Nadia Razvan. She was a waitress at the Cherry Beach club.’

  ‘I don’t know what that is.’

  ‘It’s the place Nizari was snatched from in Spain.’

  ‘Nizari is your mysterious passenger?’

  Makana nodded. ‘The first time we met Boris, you told him I was heading for Sofia.’ He waited. She pulled a sweatshirt over her head as she came towards him. ‘I never mentioned where I was going.’

  ‘You must have done. Maybe you don’t remember.’

  ‘I would have remembered something like that.’

  She folded her arms. ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘I was wondering if maybe Nadir had told you.’

  ‘You think maybe he was a little too talkative, and maybe that got him killed?’ She was pulling on a pair of jeans.

  ‘I’m just asking a question.’

  She shook her head. ‘Nadir was careful about that sort of thing.’

  ‘You’re saying he trusted you.’

  ‘Of course.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘You’re not accusing me of betraying him, I hope.’

  Makana smiled. ‘Somebody betrayed him.’

  ‘Fuck you!’ she said, turned away again. ‘Nadir was a friend. More than a friend.’

  ‘You were thrown in prison. You hated your own government. What better way to get back at them than working for the Israelis?’

  Kara Deniz marched over to him and looked him straight in the eye.

  ‘I would never betray a friend, no matter how much I hated the government. Is that clear?’

  Makana nodded.

  ‘Okay, good.’ She was moving around the room, gathering up money and cigarettes. ‘I’m going out to meet some friends. You can stay here. Help yourself to anything. If you leave, just put the key back where it was.’ She was already by the door, pulling on her leather jacket. She paused to look back at him. ‘Maybe you have issues trusting people, or maybe it’s something to do with me being a woman, but not everyone who tries to help you is after something. Try to get some rest. It sounds like you need it.’

  She was right. Makana felt suddenly exhausted. He emptied the ashtray and made himself some tea before settling himself on the battered sofa, which he discovered was lumpy but not uncomfortable. He looked at his watch. Still a few hours to go. The day was drawing to a close. A gloomy light filtered in from the street below as he closed his eyes and tried to assess his position. Right now the best thing for him to do would be to get out of this city as fast as he could, with Nizari if possible. But that would leave something unresolved, something that had preoccupied him for so long it had become a part of him. To leave here now would tear still wider the wound he had carried with him for fifteen years. He wasn’t even sure that the woman he had seen with Mek Nimr was Nasra. All he knew was that if he didn’t find out one way or the other he would never be able to live with himself.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Istanbul Day Six

  It was late now, and the ferry port was crowded with drunken revellers, which made things easier for Makana. At the entrance policemen surveyed the crowds, but at this time of night there was too much for them to see, too many people to watch. He slipped by among a large group of tourists without drawing their attention.

  Once free of the harbour, the demons seemed to leave the passengers, as if the sea brought its own sense of calm, mortality, even a touch of poetry to proceedings, and people slumped into a state of exhaustion. Most of them disembarked on the Asian side of the city, before the ferry plunged back out into the dark sea, heading across the water on the second leg of its triangular course, delivering the last stragglers to their homes on the islands like mariners who had spent lifetimes toiling the seven seas.

  An air of reverence hung over Heybeliada as Makana made his way up the coastal path to the house. A lone white owl swooped ahead of him up the road, wings outstretched like a vision of ghostly hope, before being swallowed by darkness. Following the road as it curved away from the bay and up into the trees, Makana remembered the story of the exiled princes from whom the islands got their names. He imagined that being exiled here might not be so bad. The hustle and bustle of Istanbul already felt distant, another country, almost another universe.

  As he walked, he was accompanied by the gentle creak of the pines overhead. The air was perfumed with the faint trace of resin. He saw only one other person, the driver of a horse-drawn carriage that trotted by him on its way back to town. The man lifted a hand in greeting and Makana stood and waited for the carriage to disappear around the bend before moving on.

  There was a chilly edge to the breeze, and he pulled his jacket tighter and hunched his shoulders. This time he didn’t bother going up to the main house but pushed open the gate, closed it quietly behind him, then stepped off the drive and cut across to the path that led over the grassy lawn to where the land fell away. The lights were on in the main house and the sound of a piano trickled across the lawn behind him. The elegant outline of the wooden pavilion was silhouetted against the rising moon. Through the trees he could see the sea, shiny and hard, with the flat outlines of distant cargo ships moored to the glassy surface. Makana moved into the deep shadows under the trees.

  In the pavilion, Ayman Nizari was snoring peacefully to himself. The room reeked of aniseed and raw spirit and it seemed pretty safe to assume that he had drunk himself into a stupor. Hardly surprising, thought Makana, that someone willing to sell chemical weapons that could strip the lining from a man’s lungs might have trouble sleeping, but who was he to point fingers.

  Makana settled himself into the old rocking chair on the porch and watched the finger of moonlight reach out of the sea towards him. It reminded him of nights he had spent on the awama, and for a time he was lost in reverie, and then he was asleep.

  He opened his eyes to see Professor Aksoy’s daughter staring up at him from the bottom of the porch steps, holding a tray of breakfast things.

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘You have come for him,’ she said as she came up the steps. ‘Are you sure it’s s
afe?’

  ‘I think it’s time,’ said Makana.

  She set the tray down on the table and poured him a cup of coffee from a small pot.

  ‘To tell the truth, I am relieved,’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘I think it could be dangerous for us. I have a small child.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Makana, sipping his coffee.

  ‘The truth is, I don’t think my mother even liked him,’ she whispered.

  ‘No,’ said Makana. He wasn’t sure there was anything very likeable about Nizari. ‘They wrote a paper together.’

  ‘Yes, but my mother said it was the worst decision she ever made. It almost destroyed her reputation.’ She glanced through the window at the cot where Nizari was sleeping. ‘He falsified his results, and two years later he was creating nerve agents to gas the Kurds. He is not a good man.’

  Makana took a deep breath. ‘I know.’

  ‘Do what you have to do,’ she said firmly. ‘But please get him away from me and my family.’

  ‘I will.’

  He watched her walk back up towards the main house. Through the screen door he could see a man looking out at them, the child held in his arms. Nizari jumped when Makana shook him awake.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ He sounded confused.

  ‘Get dressed,’ said Makana. ‘It’s time to go.’

  By eight thirty they were on the quayside watching the ferry coming into the harbour. They had ridden down from the house in a carriage Professor Aksoy’s daughter had summoned. She seemed to want to do everything she could to get Nizari out of her house. As they clip-clopped down the hill, Makana imagined himself in a nineteenth-century Russian novel.

  On the quayside he concerned himself with observing their fellow passengers, but he saw nothing suspicious and the journey was uneventful. He texted Boris just before they disembarked in Beyazit. He noticed a police van parked close by and two officers randomly checking passengers as they made their way into town. Grabbing Nizari by the elbow, he steered him along the waterfront until there was a chance to slip into a sidestreet.