Deadly Web

by Barbara Nadel

  Süleyman caught sight of the familiar figure of his ex-wife and her husband coming down the corridor towards him.

  He turned again to Çöktin. ‘I’d like you to do that with me, İsak,’ he said, ‘after I’ve spoken to Mr and Mrs Topal.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Oh, and İsak, could you call Inspector İkmen for me?’

  ‘It is nearly four o’clock in the morning, sir.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but this is important.’ He moved a little closer to Çöktin. ‘It concerns Maximillian Esterhazy,’ he said. ‘It would seem that he really is still alive.’

  CHAPTER 17

  Sometimes events can overtake even the most important items of information. And so it wasn’t until İkmen was on the launch, headed out towards Büyükada, that Süleyman had a chance to tell him about Hüsnü Gunay.

  ‘Unfortunately Öz is his advocate,’ he said, citing one of the city’s most expensive lawyers. ‘And so proving that he and the hacker Mendes are one and the same is going to be tough. He maintains that Mendes drew the image and e-mailed it to him.’

  ‘Is it a print? I gathered it was an original,’ İkmen said.

  ‘I thought it was at first,’ Süleyman replied. ‘But yes, it is in fact a printout.’

  ‘But why did this Gunay give it to the bar?’

  ‘Because he thought Mendes would find the notion amusing,’ he said. ‘Gunay is an occasional presence in the Hammer – in tune, it would seem, with all that Gothic stuff. Apparently his “friend” Mendes finds all of that highly amusing and produced the artwork as a sort of a joke. He’s not prepared at this time to say any more than that. Just like he’s not prepared to discuss the peculiarities of the image . . .’

  ‘The thirteen . . .’

  ‘Quite.’ Süleyman looked behind him at Arto Sarkissian and smiled. ‘Which he claims was Mendes being ironic and so he couldn’t possibly comment.’

  ‘But you think he actually is Mendes?’ İkmen said.

  ‘I think it’s very odd that Mendes, who finds things occult so amusing, should use an obviously demonic name,’ Süleyman said.

  ‘Maybe it’s foreign,’ İkmen replied. ‘After all, we don’t know where Mendes comes from or even what he or she is, do we?’

  ‘No. But aside from that there is something else too,’ Süleyman said with a frown. ‘A complication. But we can’t talk about it now. Maybe later.’

  ‘Why not now?’

  Süleyman held up his hand. ‘Just trust me on this, Çetin.’

  The older man shrugged. ‘OK.’

  The complication Süleyman was talking about hadn’t actually arisen during the course of Gunay’s interview. That had come later, when his lawyer, Adnan Öz, had had ‘a word’ with Süleyman afterwards. The word in question was Çöktin’s name and the implication was that if Hüsnü Gunay had a day in court then so would the film-dubbing Yezidi. Öz had been, quite patently, angling for a deal.

  As the great bulk of Büyükada came into view, Arto Sarkissian turned to İkmen and said, ‘I understand this latest victim is a gypsy girl.’

  ‘That’s what the local officers say, yes,’ İkmen replied.

  ‘Do we know how old?’

  ‘I don’t think they’re entirely sure,’ İkmen responded gloomily. ‘What does it matter anyway? Someone murdered her. She’s dead when she shouldn’t be.’

  And, he thought, Max was supposed to be on the island yesterday. Max was alive and he was a connection too – to Cem Ataman, Lale Tekeli and, although only for the last few months, he had, so they’d learned just that morning, tutored Gülay Arat too. So what, if anything, was his connection to this gypsy?

  As the launch pulled in to the side of the ornate Ottoman landing stage, İkmen experienced a feeling of intense loneliness. Because he and Süleyman had been working on different cases in different parts of the city, İkmen hadn’t had time to tell his colleague everything he had discovered about Max Esterhazy. Not to mention Alison. But then no one, apart from Max, knew anything about her. And maybe Max knew even more about her than he had divulged to İkmen. Maybe Max even knew where she was.

  Although part of Süleyman wanted desperately to go home and contact his wife about his test results, he had waited this long and so a few hours more would make little difference. Besides, at present he needed to be here on this beautiful, if slightly sad, little island. It was İkmen who went back to the city, needing to return to the pursuit of the still elusive Max.

  The gypsies, the girl’s family and friends, just stood at the bottom of the hill, their faces set and emotionless. Gülizar, so the local constable told him, had been ‘well known’ to men both local and from further afield. Poor and illiterate, if she had ever been off the island it would only have been to beg in the city. What did all this mean? If anything?

  Gülizar had been stabbed through the heart and sexually assaulted, just like the other two girls. But unlike the others there wasn’t or didn’t seem to be any sort of connection between her and them. She wasn’t and never had been part of the Goth scene, Max Esterhazy hadn’t ever taught her and she was by no means affluent. The only tenuous link that existed was the notion that Max had been on Büyükada the previous evening. Although there wasn’t, as yet, any evidence to support this. No one, certainly at Hamdı Baba, remembered seeing him, and yet if he’d asked Fitnat to meet him there, surely he must have looked in to see if she was about? Maybe he’d done that from a distance. It had to have depended, Süleyman supposed, upon what he was planning. Just the thought of it made him shudder. Had Max, as İkmen had almost shame-facedly suggested, intended to kill Fitnat, only lighting upon the unfortunate Gülizar when his student failed to show up?

  But why would he do that? Why would Max, his friend, a kind and generous man in his experience, perform such evil deeds? İkmen had told him about how Max had lied about his past and Süleyman could, in part, understand that. But just because his father had been a Nazi didn’t mean that Max was too. And İkmen concurred with this. The connection between Max and these murders was through his students and via Süleyman’s own feelings about a ritualistic element inherent in the killings. Apparently Max was a much more powerful practitioner than had been previously thought. But that didn’t necessarily mean that he was involved with killing anyone. Hüsnü Gunay – Mendes, if indeed that was what he was – hadn’t responded to any of his questions about Max Esterhazy. Did he know or had he known Max or not? And what of the blood İkmen and İskender had found at Max’s apartment? Was the older blood Max’s, and where on earth had the other blood come from?

  Demir Sandal hadn’t wanted to go down into Karaköy, particularly seeing as that involved meeting Balthazar Cohen. But Jak Bey had insisted, and besides, it had enabled Demir possibly to gain a little more profit out of the enterprise. Balthazar was crippled and, according to his brother, in need of some erotic AIDS.

  ‘Of course it depends upon your taste,’ Demir said as he spread a vast swathe of books, magazines and videos before the eyes of the Cohen brothers. ‘It’s all here, Balthazar Bey – straight stuff, lesbian, bondage – everything you could want.’

  Jak, who hadn’t wanted the pornographer to come to the apartment, watched the door nervously against Estelle’s return.

  ‘What I want is a real woman!’ his brother said tetchily.

  ‘Well . . .’

  Demir Sandal placed his large behind down in the chair next to Balthazar’s and said, ‘Now, Balthazar Bey, as you know, I don’t provide women myself. But I do have – contacts. Now let us see, what is it that you require . . . ?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Balthazar exploded. ‘I know you’ve got tarts, Demir! You’ve got a record for pimping illegals! And as for what I want . . .’ he leaned towards Sandal and shouted into his face, ‘I want a girl prepared to have sex with me. She doesn’t have to be pretty, young or even interested. She’s just got to do it!’

  Jak’s feelings on the subject were that if Balthazar were a little k
inder to Estelle, she might volunteer – maybe she even wanted to get closer to her husband herself. But Balthazar was adamant that wouldn’t work. He was, he claimed, addicted to illicit sex and he hadn’t had a ‘fix’ for nearly three years.

  ‘Well, I will ask around and see what I can do,’ Sandal said, and then, drawing Balthazar’s attention back to his wares, he added, ‘Now books, magazines . . .’

  ‘Anything with lesbians,’ Balthazar said dismissively.

  ‘So a book, a video, a—’

  ‘Everything,’ Balthazar snapped, and then throwing a vicious look at Jak he said, ‘My brother will pay. You can put it on his bill.’

  Sandal looked across questioningly at Jak, who just shrugged his assent.

  ‘Oh, what it must be to have a generous brother,’ the pornographer said.

  Jak managed a smile, but only just. Balthazar was now trying his patience to its very limit and so once Sandal had given him what seemed to be a huge selection of books and videos, Jak took him to one side to make payment.

  ‘You’ll need tea if you’re going to do business,’ Balthazar said. ‘But the woman is out.’

  ‘This won’t take long, Balthazar,’ Jak said.

  He’d already made up his mind not to haggle. The costumes weren’t expensive by European standards and besides, he was far too anglicised to be bothered with something he now saw as an unnecessary bore. Demir Sandal found it all highly amusing.

  ‘Oh, Jak Bey,’ he said, ‘what have the English people done to you? Please, please, let us start again, this isn’t right!’

  Jak placed two large wads of banknotes down on the table and walked away. ‘Take it or leave it, Demir Bey,’ he said. ‘I am very pleased with the workmanship of the garments you’ve sold to me and I am more than happy to give you what you ask.’

  For a few moments, Demir Sandal just shook his head in disbelief. Then he clicked his tongue and said, ‘Oh, Allah, what a great man! Jak Bey—’

  ‘Thank you, Demir Bey.’

  Jak wanted him to go now, before Estelle returned. He didn’t want her seeing what he’d just purchased for her husband nor did he want to witness yet another of their rows. Demir Sandal pocketed the cash with lightning rapidity. Then he stood up.

  ‘Ah, well, Jak Bey, I must be on my way,’ he said. ‘A lot of business to do in this city. A man can so rarely take his rest—’

  ‘Don’t forget about getting me a woman!’ Balthazar interjected.

  ‘Oh, no, Balthazar Bey. I will bend my mind to your problem immediately.’ He stooped to shake hands with Balthazar and then turned to Jak and said, ‘Ah, and, Jak Bey, but of course I promised you something else, didn’t I?’

  He put his hand inside his jacket and produced a videotape that looked as if it had seen much happier times. Minus a case, it was dusty and, probably by virtue of being in Demir’s pocket, not a little greasy.

  ‘Absolutely new and unique,’ he said as he pressed the tape into Jak’s rather unwilling hand. ‘Women with Sea Snakes,’ he whispered. ‘New frontiers have been set in this remarkable video, Jak Bey. In England they will love it, I promise you. I can make as many copies as you like, only twenty dollars, American, each.’

  Somehow, Jak managed to usher him out of the apartment and, when he’d gone, he went back into the living room and tossed the video into a waste-paper bin. He’d been so happy to be back in İstanbul at first, but now he’d had enough – of Balthazar and his constant complaints, of Estelle’s deep unhappiness, of the traffic, the bartering and of the way his nephew and his wife had become the objects of his brother’s salacious speculation. What Berekiah and Hulya did to and with each other was their affair. He sat down opposite his brother and looked with distaste at the sight of Balthazar slavering over a magazine. Jak picked up the telephone directory and looked up the number for the British Airways office. Can my flight be brought forward somehow? he wondered.

  ‘İkmen.’

  He turned, only to be momentarily blinded by what looked like a cloud of purple and silver.

  ‘Gonca?’

  She walked over and threaded one of her arms through his. How long, he wondered, had she been lurking outside the station waiting for him?

  ‘Now let us go to the apartment of the magician and let us talk,’ she said.

  ‘The keys are in my office,’ İkmen replied.

  ‘Then let us go and get them.’

  He looked at her doubtfully and she laughed. ‘OK, I’ll wait for you outside,’ she said. ‘But if you’re not out in ten minutes . . .’

  ‘What do you want, Gonca?’

  Her face assumed a serious expression. ‘One of my people died last night,’ she said. ‘The daughter of a phaeton driver of the islands.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Ah . . .’ She looked purposefully mysterious.

  But İkmen wasn’t easily taken in. The gypsies of the islands, though poor, had similar priorities to those in the city.

  ‘An amazing thing, the mobile phone,’ he said, and she smiled.

  ‘All technology emanates from the creativity of man, İkmen,’ she said. ‘And that is magic.’

  He went and got the key and the two of them then walked, arm in arm, towards Max Esterhazy’s apartment. The sun was still unusually strong for the time of year and Gonca turned an appreciative face up towards it.

  ‘So how, apart from the obvious, does this death on Büyükada concern you?’ İkmen asked, hoping with every fibre of his being that his wife didn’t see him arm in arm with Gonca.

  ‘I was visited last night,’ she said, ‘by someone you know, a very nice boy . . .’

  ‘Gonca!’ İkmen stopped in his tracks and turned to look at her. ‘Do tell me you didn’t seduce Sergeant Karataş!’

  ‘No, no, no, no, no!’ she laughed. ‘No, my “involvement” with the police hasn’t increased of late, I can assure you, much as I would have liked it to have done. But—’

  ‘So you saw Constable Yıldız.’

  ‘Oh, no names, please,’ she said. ‘A person came to see me, troubled by death, you understand. One suicide, two murders. He used, this person, the word “ritual”, copying, he said, his superior. Young people, killed around the city; young students maybe of a magician. I thought what a strange way for such similar modes of dispatch to be distributed – such disparate parts of the city . . . and then this morning—’

  ‘Gonca, we are quite aware of the fact that these deaths are probably connected, possibly by Max.’

  ‘We need to know some details about these dead children, İkmen, before we can proceed,’ she said.

  ‘That isn’t my case, Gonca.’

  ‘Oh, well then,’ she said. ‘Perhaps we ought to speak to Inspector Süleyman.’

  ‘He’s over on Büyük . . .’

  ‘Wasting his time.’ Gonca looked into İkmen’s eyes with a fierce intensity. ‘You know I’ve always wanted to meet him properly,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard many things. That he’s extremely handsome, I know – I saw him once. But is he needful too, I wonder?’

  She held İkmen’s mobile phone, seamlessly lifted from his inside jacket pocket, up to his face, and said, ‘Call him.’

  ‘What details do you want, Gonca?’ İkmen said, as he punched Süleyman’s number into his telephone.

  ‘I want to know if anything was found with the bodies,’ she said. ‘Flowers, fruit – things like that. Oh, and I’ll need to know when they were born too.’

  ‘I thought you said you weren’t a Kabbalist,’ İkmen said slightly sourly.

  She led him into the front entrance of the apartment block and began to walk up the stairs. ‘Oh, I’m not,’ she said. ‘But now that we have four we have a pattern – even I know that.’

  CHAPTER 18

  For once İkmen was genuinely baffled. There was a young man in the room that Gonca wasn’t flirting with. It was most strange. But then maybe she was annoyed that Süleyman hadn’t attended himself but had sent Çöktin over with the
information she required. Or maybe it was because the Kurd’s attitude was somewhat hostile.

  ‘Cem Ataman committed suicide,’ he said. ‘Why do you want to know about him?’

  ‘He died with a knife in his heart,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, which he did himself.’ Çöktin turned to İkmen. ‘Sir, I’m not happy about this method of procedure . . .’

  ‘İsak, just tell her what she wants to know,’ İkmen said wearily.

  There was a moment of silence while Çöktin took his notebook out of his pocket.

  ‘Cem Ataman,’ he said, ‘born July the first 1984.’

  The gypsy wrote this down on a piece of paper and then said, ‘And the two little girls . . . ?’

  ‘Sir!’

  ‘For the love of Allah, Çöktin, just do it, will you!’

  Çöktin, his chin set in anger, looked down at the book again and muttered, ‘Lale Tekeli, twelfth of December 1985.’

  İkmen raised his eyebrows: the same date – if not, of course, year – as his own birthday.

  ‘And?’

  ‘I’m getting there!’ Çöktin said. ‘Gülay Arat, first of January—’

  ‘OK, OK. Now tell me exactly where each of these children was found,’ the gypsy said. ‘Come on, blue eyes, hurry up!’

  Oh, so that is it, İkmen thought, she doesn’t like his blue eyes. She fears the misfortune they may bring. Although quite why, he couldn’t imagine. Gonca, like a lot of deeply superstitious people, was covered in the traditional blue boncuk beads, said to protect one from the malign influence of ‘the eye’.

  Çöktin, still not happy around the gypsy, told her anyway, and then she turned to İkmen. ‘Now this girl, not the gypsy, the one the magician was supposed to meet on Büyükada, when was she born?’

  ‘I have no idea. Why?’

  ‘Well, find out, İkmen.’

  ‘Not until you tell me precisely what your point is,’ İkmen said. ‘I assume astrology is involved somewhere . . .’

  ‘Not just astrology. Look.’

  She drew what appeared to be a very rough map of İstanbul – basically three blobs, one representing the old city, one the new and another Asia.