Deadly Web

by Barbara Nadel

  İsak Çöktin entered the house in the middle of the block just before midday. An extensive search had been made of the other properties in the street, including the one outside of which the girl’s body had been found. This one, however, number eight, had been empty for a number of years, which in such an overcrowded area struck Çöktin as odd.

  ‘It is a place of mischievous djinn,’ a local woman explained just before the officers entered. ‘Sometimes at night you can hear them about their naughty ways.’

  Or, Çöktin felt, the rather more likely scenario of kids getting in there to sniff gas and beat the place up. However, once he’d entered the upper storey of the property he quickly changed his mind. Whatever one might think of the street kids, they rarely actually killed each other, which is what must have happened in that room.

  ‘There’s blood everywhere, sir,’ he said when he telephoned Süleyman.

  ‘OK, we’ll need a comparison with the blood of the victim. I’ll order a full forensic examination.’

  ‘Right.’

  Once the call was over, Çöktin placed his phone back in his pocket. But it rang again almost immediately.

  ‘Çöktin.’

  ‘Mendes has just replied to my message,’ a smooth, if slightly hyper voice said. ‘He’d like to talk to you.’

  ‘I assume you mean over the Net,’ Çöktin replied.

  Hüsnü laughed. ‘I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘It’s up to you. I’m always here.’ And then he cut the connection.

  Man of mystery, Hüsnü, or at least that was what he wanted to be. Quite what he was, aside from a techno-junkie with money, Çöktin didn’t know or even really want to be concerned about. But he would go out to Cihangir once he’d settled things in Yediküle – if indeed things could be settled. He’d seen some gruesome crime scenes in his time, but nothing quite like this. There had, it seemed, been a torrent of blood let loose in this creaking wooden room. Whoever had killed her must have thrown her body around in order to get this awful spattering effect. For some reason. Dr Sarkissian was, he knew, of the opinion that the girl, like Gülay Arat, had been sexually assaulted by someone. In addition, someone, probably her killer, must have thrown her body out of the window and into the street as the ledge was too high for her to have fallen without assistance. But why the seemingly wild distribution of blood? Anyone in the room with her must have been covered in the stuff. But then maybe that was the point of the exercise.

  The not inconsiderable number of half-eaten limes that littered the floor were, however, rather less comprehensible.

  İkmen had seen Max refer to his address book on many occasions and so he recognised it immediately. Old, black and held together with elastic bands, Max’s book was, İkmen thought with a smile, exactly what one would have expected of him. What, however, was unexpected was the fact that he couldn’t read it.

  ‘Oh, Max,’ he murmured as he turned over pages filled with what looked like random letters and numbers. ‘What is this?’

  That Max was a magician was something İkmen knew would complicate matters. If his understanding was correct, when one moved in higher arcane circles one was more likely to pursue secrecy in all aspects of one’s life. But quite where a person might begin to unravel such a system or systems he didn’t know. As well as being a Kabbalist, Max had also studied Enochian magic, Egyptian magic and was well-versed in the rites and rituals of pre-Christian England and Scandinavia. Max had once told him that some of the systems he used involved alphabets that were quite different from the Roman or Turkish alphabets. Not that the address book gave any evidence of those. Numbers, some of which were recognisable as telephone numbers, were listed alphabetically according to the Turkish system. So under S, for instance, there was a list of numbers all prefixed by, first, S, then a one- or two-digit number followed by either a foreign or domestic telephone number. There were no actual addresses at all, just more numbers, in groups that could, İkmen felt, be some sort of coded address. But how he could decipher such a thing without Max’s mind to guide him, he didn’t know.

  There were code breakers. MİT had people who worked on codes all the time – shadowy people, dedicated to the protection of the state and therefore, of necessity, unknown and unknowable. İkmen had only ever, metaphorically, brushed against such people during the course of his career and he was quite glad about that. Intelligence agents were not people it was either wise or beneficial to be in contact with. And although İkmen had little doubt that these people could help him with Max’s code, he was not going to give it to them. Apart from anything else, they’d ask why he was so interested in the book, which would lead to all sorts of explanations he didn’t really want to get into. And anyway, with Max only officially missing, that was going a bit far. Maybe, he thought, I should just call some of these numbers that look local and see what happens.

  But then maybe not. İkmen put the address book to one side and then took one of the big tomes down from Max’s shelf. Malleus Maleficarum – the so-called Hammer of the Witches, a fifteenth-century treatise on how to spot witches and magicians and bring them to ‘justice’. Not that İkmen could read this obviously old book. But he knew of it, and as he turned it over in his hands he reasoned that it was probably of nineteenth-century production. Still rare and probably obtained back in England as opposed to from the shelves at Simurg.

  However, if Max hadn’t obtained this book and others like it from England, then where, locally, could he possibly have got them from? There was only one place and it wasn’t Simurg or any other bookshop – İkmen could easily go there and then drop down the hill to the Mısır Çarşısı and the man known as Doğa. He moved over to the window and looked at the view of the Imperial Tombs that Max so much enjoyed. The Sahaflar, the book market, was only a few minutes down the road.

  Zuleika had certainly improved her social standing since their divorce. Her second husband, Burhan Topal, was obviously deriving a very good living from his now established and respected media agency. As Süleyman walked through the gates leading up to the couple’s Büyükada yalı, or summer house, he couldn’t help but be impressed by the sight of several gardeners tending the very green lawn as well as ministering to the numerous flowerbeds. The view from the front of the property, of Heybeliada, floating majestically amid the deep blueness of the Sea of Marmara, in the summer was magnificent.

  But then, as Süleyman observed while he waited for someone to answer the doorbell, Zuleika had been born and bred in the Princes’ Islands. In fact her mother, his Aunt Edibe, still lived only ten minutes away down the hill on Çankaya Caddesi. As a child, he had often been brought out here to visit his mother’s sister and her family. Like his mother, his aunt had married into a family connected, if in this case loosely, to the old Ottoman élite. His marriage to his cousin Zuleika, with whom he had never been close, had been at the instigation of these two powerful Anatolian women. It had been a mistake.

  They were taking a long time to answer the door. He’d telephoned ahead. He’d spoken to Burhan Bey’s daughter, Fitnat, and told her he was coming to speak to her father. On the street in front of the house a phaeton, driven by a gypsy and full of white-uniformed naval cadets, passed by on its way to the summit of the island’s southern hill. No cars are allowed on the islands and so people have to get around by either phaeton, bicycle or on horseback. All laughing, their voices full of youthful arrogance, the cadets and their transport presented a particularly nineteenth-century tableau as they jogged past houses that had once belonged to luminaries in the old Imperial order. There was and always had been an overpoweringly fin de siècle atmosphere in the islands. Perhaps that was why he still had a sneaking affection for them.

  ‘Mehmet Bey.’

  He turned round and smiled at the girl standing in the doorway.

  ‘Hello, Fitnat.’

  She was wearing something he felt might be more appropriate to a
film set. The skirt, which was made up of several layers of black lace, hit the ground in a welter of ruched satin that matched the very tightly fitted bodice above. Pulled in via a row of laces at the front, this bodice, while accentuating much, didn’t cover a great deal.

  ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘I’ve set a table out by the pool.’ She turned to look at him with undisguised appreciation. ‘You don’t mind being outside?’

  ‘No. As long as that is agreeable to your father.’

  She led him through the central sofa area of the yalı and out into the extensive gardens at the back of the property. Although Süleyman observed that the furnishings in the yalı were all very tasteful, they were far from contemporary. Zuleika hadn’t, he thought, put her mark on it yet. But then, she’d only been married to Burhan for a year – barely enough time to get settled, really. And besides, to do too much too soon would not be politic in this case. Zuleika’s husband, widowed only five years previously, was a lot older than she was and still, it was said, revered the memory of his first wife, Fitnat’s mother.

  The Topals’ swimming pool was large and very clear. Very inviting, in fact, to a hot and tired policeman in a suit. Fitnat, or rather one of the little servant girls Süleyman had seen dotted around the house and out on the terrace, had set a table and two chairs under a willow tree at the top end of the pool.

  ‘Would you like tea or a cold drink?’ Fitnat said as she pulled one of the chairs out for Süleyman.

  ‘Tea would be very good, thank you,’ Süleyman said as he sat down.

  ‘OK.’

  She left to go into the house, her heavy skirts leaving a ridge in the grass as she moved. Having observed the ashtray on the table before him, Süleyman lit a cigarette and waited for his host to arrive. But when the tea, borne on a tray by a girl several years younger than Fitnat, made its appearance, only Burhan Bey’s daughter came with it.

  ‘Where is your father?’ Süleyman asked.

  ‘Oh, Daddy had to go out,’ Fitnat said breezily as she sat down next to him and then dismissed the servant with a silent wave of her hand. ‘He had business in Taksim.’

  Süleyman sighed. ‘I came to see your father, Fitnat. You told me he was going to be here.’

  ‘He had to go out,’ she shrugged. ‘Daddy’s a very busy man.’

  ‘Fitnat, it is important that I speak to your father.’

  ‘Why?’ She looked across at him with mildly amused imperiousness. ‘Is Daddy in trouble?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, then why—’

  ‘I wanted to ask your father for some assistance,’ Süleyman said as he took a sip from his tea glass and then placed it down on the table again.

  ‘With what?’ Fitnat leaned forward across the table towards him and smiled. ‘Anything I can help you with?’

  It was about Fitnat that he’d come. When he’d seen İkmen that morning, the older man had said what a shame it was they didn’t have an ‘in’ on the Goth scene. It had come to him at that moment: Fitnat. Zuleika might like to get the girl pretty dresses and fool herself that the child was ‘growing out of it’ but Fitnat was still out and about with the Goths – as he’d seen with his own eyes up in Karaköy. However, if he was going to ask her about what she and her friends got up to in Atlas Pasaj he would have to obtain her father’s permission first. But Burhan Bey was out and had been, he now suspected, when he’d called just over two hours before. Fitnat, as seemed to be her custom with older men, or at least with him, appeared to be set upon trying to seduce him.

  ‘Oh, it’s so hot, isn’t it?’ she said as she just very slightly loosened the laces of her bodice. ‘I think I might have to have a swim in a minute.’

  ‘And I think that I should go,’ Süleyman said as he rose quickly to his feet.

  ‘Oh, but—’

  ‘Fitnat, I came to get your father’s permission to ask you some questions.’

  She looked up, her black-rimmed eyes wide with curiosity. ‘Well, ask them,’ she said. ‘I’m a grown-up . . .’

  ‘No . . .’

  ‘Yes, I am!’ She stood up to face him, her hands on her hips. ‘And if Daddy were here he’d agree with me.’ Then dropping her voice slightly she smiled. ‘Ask your questions, Mehmet Bey, and I will decide whether or not I am prepared to answer them.’

  He should just go. Young and, as he suspected, inexperienced as she was, someone like Fitnat could be dangerous. But then again, she might provide him with useful information, and he had come a long way, across the Marmara, on a ferry, full of day-trippers . . .

  ‘All right,’ he said as he sat back down again, ‘all right, if you want to help me, I’ll—’

  ‘Just ask for what you want, Mehmet Bey,’ Fitnat said, ‘whatever that may be.’

  At first she looked quite disappointed when he said he wanted to talk to her about her interest in Gothic fashion and music. But then as she warmed to what was a very interesting topic for her, her seductiveness returned and, this time, he responded to it in a far more humorous manner.

  ‘So why don’t you tell me what it’s like in Atlas Pasaj?’ he said.

  She looked him in the eyes and smiled. ‘It’s loud, it’s always full of people and the clothes are very, very Dracula,’ she said.

  ‘So,’ he said, groping really for ways to get at the information that he felt he needed, ‘how does a person get to be part of the scene?’

  It seemed, from what she told him, that most people came to Atlas Pasaj via their friends.

  ‘You get the odd person who comes on their own,’ Fitnat said, ‘but they’re usually the real weirdos, you know. Like people who think they’re really vampires.’

  Süleyman frowned. Only two years before he’d come across a boy who thought he was a vampire. He’d been – for he was dead now – English. Süleyman remembered thinking at the time how strange and exotic this young man had been. Now, apparently, his way of life had come to İstanbul. How quickly things changed in the city these days!

  ‘But I don’t hang out with people like that,’ Fitnat continued. ‘My friends and I like the music and the clothes but we don’t go in for all that devil stuff.’

  ‘Devil stuff?’

  ‘Zuleika gets scared that I might be associating with people who worship the Devil,’ Fitnat laughed. ‘It’s why she wants me to stop going to Atlas and start wearing pretty dresses. Personally, I think that the Gothic look is very pretty. What do you think, Mehmet Bey?’

  He smiled. ‘I think you should tell me about the devil stuff, Fitnat.’

  Annoyed that he had evaded her question, Fitnat shrugged. ‘I told you, I don’t have anything to do with that. It’s stupid.’

  ‘What’s stupid about it?’

  ‘Oh, everything. Their stupid cutting – they cut their arms and legs sometimes – letting blood for the Devil.’ She rolled her eyes impatiently. ‘And their stupid language . . .’

  ‘Their language?’ Süleyman felt himself tense.

  Fitnat threw a disinterested hand into the air. ‘Just words, really,’ she said. ‘They put them into their conversations and only they can understand them. It’s pathetic.’

  ‘So you can’t . . .’

  ‘No, but one of my friends can understand some of it.’

  ‘A friend involved in devil stuff?’

  ‘İlhan? No!’ she laughed. ‘That’s all much too masculine for him. No, he spent some time with a boy who was into it about a year ago.’

  ‘İlhan and this boy were . . . ?’

  ‘They both shared a love of women’s clothes, if you know what I mean,’ Fitnat said. Then leaning in towards Süleyman she added, ‘That’s why İlhan is only my friend, you see, Mehmet Bey. He isn’t a real man.’

  ‘No.’ Süleyman cleared his throat nervously. This girl was giving him some really illuminating information. The language some of these kids used was of particular interest. Maybe if this was the same as that used by the mysterious Communion and Nika they might be getting somewhere.
‘Do you think that your friend İlhan would be willing to speak to me about this language?’

  ‘No.’ Her face suddenly dropped into a straight, almost prim expression. ‘No, he wouldn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because all of that stuff is upsetting for him.’

  ‘Why?’

  The thin branches of the willow that enclosed them rustled gently in the very small, hot breeze.

  ‘Fitnat?’

  ‘The boy he got to know, the one who used to like women’s clothes – İlhan heard that he stabbed himself. He died.’

  Süleyman felt his face go pale. ‘When?’

  ‘When we went to Atlas for İlhan’s birthday.’

  ‘No, when did this boy—’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Fitnat said. ‘İlhan hadn’t seen him for a long time. They don’t hang around Atlas for too long, not those real intellectual devilly types. I think they must go somewhere else.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you know this boy’s name? This friend of İlhan?’

  ‘No.’ She put a hand on to his arm. ‘You’re very interested in all this devil stuff, aren’t you, Mehmet Bey?’

  He smiled. Could it be that this İlhan’s dead friend was Cem Ataman?

  ‘Fitnat, I will have to speak to İlhan.’

  ‘Why?’ She was drawing circles on his arm with one long, black varnished nail.

  ‘I can’t tell you that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it – look, Fitnat, I just can’t . . .’

  She looked up into his eyes and smiled. ‘But, Mehmet Bey, how can I ask İlhan to help you if I don’t know what you want help with?’

  İlhan, Süleyman knew, could very easily be induced to tell him everything that he knew. But, seemingly mesmerised by this girl’s seductive antics, he hesitated.

  Fitnat took her hand away from his arm and then placed one of her fingers in her mouth. She made great play of savouring this digit before saying, ‘Your suit tastes very nice, Mehmet Bey.’

  ‘Fitnat . . .’

  ‘You know, I’ve seen the way my stepmother looks at you and I don’t think that she should be doing that,’ Fitnat said as she took one of his hands and began moving it up towards her breast. ‘She’s a married woman . . .’