River of The Dead

by Barbara Nadel

  ‘Sophia?’

  She looked up and Ayşe saw that her eyes were very sore and red-looking. She said nothing, so Ayşe sat down beside her and offered her a tissue from her handbag. Clearly the girl had been crying, but there was no need to state the obvious.

  ‘Sophia, we need to talk,’ Ayşe said, after a pause during which the girl blew her nose loudly.

  ‘What about?’ Her voice was thick with both phlegm from what sounded like a cold and misery.

  ‘About Aslan.’

  ‘Piece of shit who did . . .’ Sophia shook her head and then looked up into the roof of the building and said, ‘I am sorry to the God! Sorry! Sorry!’

  ‘Sophia . . .’

  The girl got up and walked out of the church. Ayşe, following, stayed silent until Sophia stopped at the top of the steps up to the building and said, ‘Sorry. I cannot be in church and say bad words.’

  ‘That’s OK, I understand,’ Ayşe said. And then, aware that other worshippers were looking at them, she said, ‘Sophia, come on, let’s sit on one of the benches in the garden.’

  It was a lovely day and the girl shrugged her agreement easily enough. Waddling down the steps and into the garden she looked as if she were about to give birth any minute. Once they had found an appropriate bench the two women sat down, Sophia with some difficulty.

  ‘Doctor says baby is big,’ she said as she plonked herself down with a grunt. ‘Blood pressure is bad, so I will be glad when baby comes.’

  ‘I’m sure you will,’ Ayşe said with a smile. It was not ideal to be talking about things that Sophia obviously found difficult in the final stages of her pregnancy, but Ayşe really didn’t have any choice. ‘Aslan . . .’

  ‘Shit!’ Sophia put her hand into the pocket of her dress and took out a packet of cigarettes. Not a good idea, as Ayşe knew, in pregnancy, but she let it go. It was not, after all, strictly her business. ‘Last night he come after so long! I say if he think he can have baby he can fuck off!’

  Ayşe felt her face colour at this news. So Bekir İkmen had been to see his very pregnant and now rapidly smoking girlfriend.

  ‘Do you know where he had been?’

  ‘Been? No. Has gone now.’

  ‘Gone where?’

  Sophia shrugged. ‘He say there is a lot of trouble. I say, did you kill Hüseyin? He get very angry, say no, say he just have to go away.’

  ‘Sophia,’ Ayşe asked, ‘did Aslan stay with you last night?’

  ‘Yes,’ the girl said, ‘sure. He wants the sex but I say no because I am like elephant. I give him blow job.’

  ‘Ah.’ Some of the eastern European girls were very frank, and although no prude by any means, Ayşe was sometimes a little bit shocked if she were honest. Also, although Sophia didn’t yet know it, the man she was talking about was actually Ayşe’s boss’s son.

  ‘He leave this morning,’ Sophia said. ‘I say him he go this time, he go for good! But he go!’ She shrugged her arms wide and sniffed. ‘Fuck off. He won’t see baby. I will not permit. Fuck off to him!’

  In Ayşe’s experience Aslan had always been a shit, which made equating him with the close and loving İkmen family so hard. When İkmen had said that he wanted to help Sophia he had meant it. He knew she was a foul-mouthed, former (possibly) junkie. How different the father was from the son! If any revelations were to be made, however, that was for İkmen and him alone to do.

  ‘Sophia,’ Ayşe said, ‘do you remember Inspector İkmen, the man I introduced to you the other day?’

  ‘Your boss?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Sophia shrugged.

  ‘He’d like to speak to you, about Aslan,’ Ayşe said. ‘It’s all right – he won’t ask you lots and lots of questions. I think you’ve told us probably all we need to know. But he would like to talk to you. I’ve got my car with me if you don’t feel up to walking.’

  İzzet Melik literally jumped out of his seat when İkmen entered his office.

  ‘Sir, I have the administrator of the Cerrahpaşa downstairs,’ he blurted. ‘He’s a junkie, sir. I suspected before, but—’

  ‘So if he’s a junkie, what of it?’ İkmen said. ‘Did you find heroin in his office?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘Then why is he here?’ İkmen asked. ‘We have Dr Eldem who might or might not have killed the guard Ramazan Eren. Do you have reason to believe that the administrator was in on that with him?’

  ‘Well, no, not directly, but junkies are very vulnerable as we know, sir, and if this plot involving Kaya did indeed go right through the institution . . .’

  ‘We don’t know that it did.’

  İzzet Melik knew of course about İkmen’s son Bekir and he was aware that the inspector had also just come from Ardıç’s office, so it was understandable that he was subdued. However, he had thought that İkmen was in all probability at least willing to run with his notion of something big involving Kaya and drugs and maybe the deal of a lifetime.

  ‘The administrator has, by the look of him, a very big habit,’ İzzet said, his eyes shining with his need to go with this. What of course he couldn’t tell İkmen was that the administrator had tried to bribe him. By offering to ‘forget’ about the slap the policeman had given him in return for backing up his story about knowing nothing about Yusuf Kaya, he had attempted to pervert İzzet’s investigation. But İzzet had slapped him, and even though he had done so to force the administrator to do what he did, it was still not something the sergeant wanted to own up to. After all, as a means to an end it had been both clumsy and desperate.

  İkmen sighed. The interview with Ardıç hadn’t been easy. His superior had been sympathetic to his situation and believed that İkmen had been unaware of his son’s alter ego, Aslan. But Ardıç was also urging İkmen to exercise caution. He had accepted that if Kaya had indeed escaped when he did for a criminal, drug-related reason, then people both high and low in the hospital and in the prison could be involved. However, because of İkmen’s ‘involvement’ via Bekir and the possibility that that could soon be public knowledge made Ardıç tell İkmen to tread softly. He then issued instructions instigating a full search for Bekir İkmen plus a warrant for his arrest. At the very least he had given illegal drugs to İkmen’s son Kemal, a minor.

  ‘Sir,’ İzzet continued, ‘I know you think, as I do, that Kaya’s escape is about much more than just his freedom. So much money must have been either handed over or promised to make what happened possible. And even if money didn’t change hands then promises were made and I think they must have been big promises. Sir, Mr Oner, the current administrator’s predecessor who gave jobs to Lole and Öz and underwrote Mardin’s questionable work record, killed himself for some reason. He was solvent, married with children, no mistresses or creditors as far as I can see. Why did he do that if he wasn’t either guilty about something he’d already done, or scared about what was about to happen on his watch? Or was he indeed killed by someone else because maybe he was weak and unreliable?’

  ‘İzzet!’

  Melik was getting carried away now and, although İkmen agreed with a lot of what he was saying, he could not force his investigation onward using only circumstantial evidence. He also, as Ardıç had been quick to point out, had to consider his own rather delicate position now.

  ‘İzzet, I will talk to the administrator,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think that I can yet prove that all these people are actually involved in any sort of conspiracy. Dr Eldem we know was packing to leave when we picked him up, and Constable Roditi is minutely examining the hospital drug records as we speak. But we – well, I – you know that my son could possibly be part of this. I—’

  His mobile phone began to ring. With a sigh he took it out of his pocket and said, ‘İkmen.’

  What İzzet saw then was a change in his superior’s already grave expression. His face dropped and then he put one of his hands over the telephone and said to İzzet, ‘I’m sorry, a personal call. Would you mind?’ He point
ed towards the office door. ‘I’ll be with you when I can, İzzet.’

  İzzet Melik left and İkmen took his hand away from the phone. ‘Where the hell are you?’ he hissed. ‘And why did you leave one of your filthy syringes in the bedroom I so generously let you use? Do you hate us all so much?’

  On the other end of the line, Bekir sniffed. ‘No I don’t hate you. I used you, yes. I needed to be somewhere where no one would even think of looking for me. Not even Hüseyin knew where I came from and so being with you was OK. The syringe? Dad, I’ll be honest: I’d found a bigger bag underneath the bed that was much more suitable. So I put all my stuff in there and then I needed to get high and so I threw my used works in the old bag. Doesn’t matter to me now that you know I’m still on the gear.’

  ‘I never thought you were off “the gear”,’ İkmen said. ‘Your mother, however, was and is another matter. And Kemal . . .’

  ‘Little monster caught me jacking up so I gave him a few lines of coke to shut him up,’ Bekir said as if what he was saying was something of absolutely no importance. ‘You and Mum have spoilt that boy. He’s a vile brat.’

  ‘Where the hell are you?’

  Bekir laughed. ‘Dad, I am away,’ he said. ‘Things haven’t worked out quite as I had hoped, and—’

  ‘What do you mean, things haven’t worked out as you had hoped?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ Bekir said lightly. ‘I imagine that because you’re such a good police officer, such a good man, the whole country is looking for me now. You won’t find me.’

  ‘Why—’

  ‘Because that’s what it’s all about, Dad,’ Bekir said: ‘routes. Routes in, routes out, routes for the movement of whatever you may want.’

  ‘Bekir, what was the drug dealer Yusuf Kaya to you? What—’

  ‘Goodbye, Dad, and thanks for the free food and board.’

  There was a sharp click and the connection descended into a low, dead whine. For a few seconds İkmen attempted in vain to try to find the number from which his son had called, but it had been withheld. Strictly, of course, he should have at least tried to record the call, but he hadn’t. What, however, Bekir had told him, if indirectly, was that he was leaving the country. Routes in and routes out, routes for anything a person may want . . .

  İkmen jumped to his feet, opened his office door and ran back down the corridor towards Ardıç’s office.

  Chapter 18

  * * *

  Looking at Edibe Taner sitting beside Gabriel Saatçi’s hospital bed was like watching a middle-aged married couple try to cope with sudden, catastrophic sickness. The arm not attached to the glucose and saline drip that was now beginning to revive the monk was pressed against the side of Edibe Taner’s face. From time to time she would move her head to kiss his brown, parched flesh. The inspector was not, Süleyman knew, married. Maybe Gabriel Saatçi was the reason behind that? If Taner was, as seemed more than possible, in love with him, maybe other men had never stood a chance. But he had chosen God. Whether he had chosen God over Edibe Taner, Süleyman did not know. What was clear to see, however, was that there was a great affection and understanding between these two.

  ‘Oh, Inspector Süleyman,’ she said when she saw him. ‘Come and sit with us.’

  There was a chair already beside hers and he went and sat on that. As he did so she said something to the monk in Aramaic.

  ‘I’ve just told Gabriel that we must speak in Turkish,’ she said. ‘You need to know what has been happening, Inspector Süleyman.’

  He looked over at the monk, who smiled. For a contemporary of Taner’s he had aged badly. But then that was probably in part due to the harshness of his vocation. Brother Seraphim had told him that no one prayed harder or fasted more rigorously than Brother Gabriel. All the lines and dryness on his face aside, Süleyman could see why his colleague might find so much in this man to be in love with. The huge, upward-slanting green eyes were part of it, as were the plump if rather pale lips. The greater portion of his allure, however, was the facility he seemed to have, without effort, of holding one’s attention. As soon as those eyes were on someone’s face it was as if that person and only that person existed for Gabriel Saatçi. Süleyman felt genuinely and almost hypnotically drawn to this man.

  ‘Inspector Süleyman,’ the monk said in his deep, dark voice. ‘The man from İstanbul.’

  ‘Yes.’ He smiled. ‘Brother Gabriel, I have been looking forward to meeting you.’

  ‘Have you?’ The monk frowned. ‘Looking forward to seeing how the snakes cannot kill me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I was,’ he said with yet another of his sudden glittering smiles. ‘I was telling Edibe that was what the days and weeks have been about. Preparing myself.’

  And then he looked away from Süleyman and smiled up at Edibe Taner. Returning his smile, she said, ‘Gabriel prayed and fasted in the caves and the mountains. To God to give him strength and courage and to the Sharmeran to assure her that he would never harm her children.’

  ‘When Christ rose I knew I was ready,’ he said. ‘I gathered the serpents and I came down the mountain.’

  ‘OK, but why? Why do something, or rather replicate something, that Inspector Taner told me you did many years ago?’

  There was a pause then while the monk looked at Süleyman as if he didn’t understand what he had been saying.

  After a while it was Edibe Taner who explained. ‘Inspector Süleyman, Gabriel did what he did to clear his name. İbrahim Keser, the guard of the American woman I told you to go and try to find at the church, lives next door to Gabriel’s father. He and his family came from the plains when İbrahim was an infant. İbrahim Keser says that he saw Gabriel’s miracle of the snakes out in the desert when he was a child. He says he spied upon the attack, saw everything and then followed Gabriel as he made his way, pouring with blood and venom, back into the city.’

  ‘And is this true?’

  ‘İbrahim Keser was certainly behind Gabriel when he came into Mardin,’ Taner said. ‘But he said nothing about seeing anything untoward, either as a child or even later on in his life. But then a few months ago he went to Musa Saatçi and told him that he wanted him to do a favour for him.’

  ‘He asked my father to conceal some weapons for him in his house,’ Gabriel Saatçi said. ‘My father of course refused. İbrahim had never been, as far as my father knew, involved with any terrorist organisation. But there was a connection to the Kaya family and they are not people to become involved with. But then İbrahim threatened my father. He said that if my father didn’t do as he said he would tell everyone that what he saw me do with the snakes in the desert was nothing more than a parlour trick. I was, he said, a charlatan.’

  ‘And so your father did as he asked in order to protect you, or rather your reputation.’

  ‘Yes. I know that the miracle I was granted truly happened,’ Gabriel said. ‘I also know that many of my people take comfort from that proof of God’s love. These are nervous times. Our people do not need uncertainties.’

  ‘Uncle Musa didn’t tell Gabriel about any of this until after the arms had been discovered and he was at the police station,’ Taner said.

  ‘I went to the mountains to pray and to gain strength because I knew that the only way I could defeat İbrahim was to let the serpents have me again,’ the monk said. ‘My father would not countenance just going to the police and telling them about the blackmail. I had to prove myself and then reveal the story behind my actions afterwards. But . . . but I failed—’

  ‘You didn’t fail anything!’ Edibe Taner said as she once again gripped hard on to his arm. ‘I was trying to stop you and then you collapsed. You were very dehydrated, Gabriel.’

  ‘My father will be furious I didn’t manage to do what we had agreed.’ He coughed a little and then took a sip of water from a small glass beside his bed.

  ‘But I am glad,’ Taner said. ‘Not because I think the snakes would have harmed you, I know that they would n
ot. But now I can release Uncle Musa.’

  ‘Father will say there is now a shadow over my vocation . . .’

  ‘No. He won’t. He won’t!’ She reached up and very tenderly touched his eyes and his lips with her fingers. ‘He will know as I do that it was the will of Allah that you collapsed and through the good offices of the Sharmeran that my father was there to take good care of her children.’

  They looked into each other’s eyes as if no one else existed in the world. These two, if a long time ago, had been meant for each other. The monk had given up much to follow his God. Süleyman cleared his throat after a moment and Edibe Taner looked round.

  ‘So, Inspector,’ he said, ‘the arms.’

  ‘Whose are they? We don’t know,’ she said. ‘İbrahim Keser didn’t tell Musa Saatçi anything.’

  ‘But because he works for the Kaya family it would seem reasonable to assume that they are—’

  ‘Maybe. But Keser doesn’t work for Yusuf Kaya’s family in the city, remember. He is employed to look after the American woman.’

  ‘And so?’

  ‘And so Zeynep Kaya or even Yusuf’s own mother herself may not know anything about them,’ she said. ‘The weapons came from İbrahim Keser, remember, based out at Dara. Now I know that Zeynep knows about the American woman, but it is my belief that it is Elizabeth Smith and not Zeynep who knows where Yusuf is.’

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘Because Yusuf is a man of “honour”,’ she said, rolling her eyes at the irony inherent in the term as she did so. ‘I don’t believe he would put his wife, his mother and his family in the city in harm’s way. The American woman is expendable. The arms came via one of his men in Dara, where she is.’