‘As I said, he lied to you. The smell is wormwood,’ Ayşe persisted. ‘And, sir, I would suggest that it was being used to cover the scent of any narcotics Bekir might have been carrying in that bag. Your son was using heroin himself, as well as sniffing coke and giving that to your other boy. He might have been carrying cannabis too at some stage and that really can smell. But with wormwood around he’d know no one would be able to detect anything else he was carrying. He’d even maybe be confident enough to leave the apartment and go down the street with the stuff. Only our own drug dogs would get past wormwood – maybe. And your son wasn’t likely to come up against one of those, was he? Have you found any more drugs in this room?’
İkmen, suddenly deflated by being taken for what he felt was a fool, sat down shakily on Bülent’s old bed. ‘No . . .’
‘Have you looked?’
‘No, not . . .’
He looked awful. Ayşe went and sat down next to him.
‘Sir, I will look round and then we will, as you have suggested, call forensic,’ she said gently. ‘I suspect if your son had a large amount of heroin, cocaine or whatever here in this room he has now taken it with him. You have no idea where he might have gone?’
‘No.’
‘Well, sir,’ Ayşe said as she looked around the room once again, ‘all I can suggest at this stage is that, assuming that your son Bekir and the late Hüseyin Altun’s lieutenant Aslan are one and the same, we pick up Sophia the Bulgarian girl again.’
‘Sophia?’ For a moment İkmen looked confused. But then as light began to dawn in his brain he said, ‘Of course, Sophia! The girl who was, er, um . . .’
‘The girl who is pregnant, she says, with Aslan’s child,’ Ayşe said.
There was no accompaniment of any sort. When the beautiful young women in the Suriani choir began to sing their voices soared alone until they were answered by the deeper sounds of the men’s choir which now, as if by magic, appeared from behind a large spangled cloth that hung beside the altar. Beyond was a rough-cut stone doorway out of which now processed men and boys of all ages from ten to eighty. Both men and women continued to sing until the areas to both sides of the altar were filled with people and with sound. The service had been going on, so far as Süleyman could tell, for at least an hour and a half. Where on earth was the American woman and why didn’t Edibe Taner look at all agitated about the fact that she hadn’t shown up? But then, if she had the house outside Dara under surveillance, maybe she knew something that he didn’t. He looked across the aisle meaningfully, or so he thought, at the policewoman, but she didn’t respond. She was, like the rest of the congregation with the exception of Süleyman, singing. More unintelligible minutes passed. Then the priest, carrying before him a large metal cross wrapped closely in a blood red cloth, began to process round the church, followed by the men’s choir.
He’d heard Arab women ululating before – from a distance. Close to, as it was now, it was both eerie and deafening. What it meant in this context he didn’t really know, although from the tears in the people’s eyes he assumed they were probably mourning the suffering of their Christ. All of them wanted to touch the red-robed cross as it passed, and if they managed to do so they smiled at those around them. It was as he was watching the procession move round the back of the church that he saw a covered woman, surrounded by the guards he’d seen at Elizabeth Smith’s house, walk through the door. The group separated, she slipping to the women’s side of the church and her guards coming to stand behind Süleyman and Seçkin Taner on the men’s side. No one had reacted in a noticeable fashion to their arrival. The women’s ululations continued to roll around the inside walls of the church, making every hair on Süleyman’s head and body stand up as, in his mind at least, the Cobweb World all but enveloped him.
Chapter 16
* * *
Between his apartment on Büyük Hendek Alley and some nameless little street somewhere, probably less than a kilometre away in the district of Cihangir, Murat Lole managed to lose his police ‘tail’. One young constable, whose first time on such an assignment this was, plus one slightly older and more experienced officer were the culprits. Apparently the younger one had been distracted by the sight of a group of dancing girls crossing a street on their way to one of the nightclubs of Beyoğlu. His older colleague had clearly been equally entranced. İkmen was incandescent with rage, but not just with the two officers. In fact he didn’t spend very much time berating them at all, because when İzzet Melik brought Dr Eldem in he turned his attention to him.
‘Our pathologist, backed up by toxicology reports from the forensic institute, has proved that the cause of the prison officer Ramazan Eren’s death was not spontaneous multiple organ failure,’ İkmen said as he sat down opposite the doctor. ‘Cause of death was poisoning via a massive overdose of diamorphine. You were in charge of this patient, Dr Eldem. Explain this, will you.’
The doctor didn’t answer. He sat, impassively, in front of İkmen and İzzet Melik, his face expressionless. For a moment İkmen just looked back until he turned to İzzet Melik and said, ‘Sergeant, did you say that Dr Eldem has waived his right to legal representation?’
‘Yes, sir,’ İzzet replied. ‘I don’t know why; he wouldn’t say.’
İkmen leaned across the interview room table towards the doctor and said, ‘That wasn’t very bright, Dr Eldem. As the responsible physician to a man who has died via an overdose of hospital quality diamorphine you’re not in a particularly good place at the moment.’
‘Other people had access to that room apart from me,’ Dr Eldem said calmly. ‘I know I didn’t kill the guard. It’s up to you to prove it.’
‘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 l
ong 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.’
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