Deadly Web

by Barbara Nadel

  ‘Gonca Hanım. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Well, I am waiting for you to drive me home,’ she said.

  ‘But haven’t you been home?’

  Just for a moment he wondered whether in fact she’d been at the station since the early hours of the morning, but then he decided that that wasn’t possible. If vaguely, he did remember her leaving.

  ‘You know, what you need in your life is some fun,’ she said. ‘Harmless enjoyment that cannot impinge upon anyone around you.’

  Süleyman frowned. The gypsy, seeing this, laughed. ‘Oh, don’t look so frightened,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to seduce you!’

  With what sounded like a sigh of relief he opened his car door and bade her get inside.

  ‘Of course I’ll take you home,’ he said as she slid into the passenger seat beside him.

  As soon as she was seated she put her hand on his knee.

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘But I didn’t say anything about you seducing me,’ she said. ‘Through the magic of condoms and my sworn silence you can have a lot of fun tonight and with absolutely no consequences for the future.’

  That he even paused to think about it did appal part of his mind. But there was another bit of him that was, and had been ever since his test results came through, crying out for some sort of sexual contact. He had hoped it would be with his wife but, so far, she hadn’t answered any of his calls. And anyway, hadn’t Krikor Sarkissian said that as long as he was careful there was no reason for him to become infected with any sort of disease in the future? The gypsy, even by the thin light of the streetlamp above, was very beautiful. However, she was also giving herself, at times, to Constable Yıldız. Surely as a man of dignity he shouldn’t follow, as it were, his inferiors?

  But then the gypsy took one of his hands in hers and placed it into the folds of her blouse so that it touched the flesh of her breast. ‘Fun,’ she breathed as he began to move his fingers just very gently. ‘Come and have some fun.’

  There was no more talking or even thinking about what they had both been through that night. There was also, for Gonca, very little in the way of taking control too. Unlike the boys she frequently amused herself with, Süleyman was a man who knew both what to do and what he wanted. And when the morning came, she did what she rarely did for male visitors and brought him tea in bed. As he drank, she lay down beside him and moved her hand under the covers towards his penis.

  ‘Why don’t you stay?’ she said. ‘I can feel that you want to.’

  Playfully, which was something of a new experience for Süleyman, he pushed her hand away. ‘I have work to do.’

  ‘Just once more,’ she said.

  ‘Look, Gonca,’ he replied a little nervously now, ‘I thought we agreed . . .’

  ‘Some fun now and then never again – no names, no nothing? Yes,’ she smiled, ‘of course. But let me just do this . . .’

  She took his half-empty tea glass and put it on the floor beside the bed. She then opened her silk robe to let her large breasts fall free and he felt himself stiffen. Taking control, just for this once, she mounted him and began to move herself against him. Looking at her like that, moving on top of him, her hands all over her breasts, was, he thought, probably the sexiest thing he had ever seen. And yes, he was having fun too – a lot of it.

  When it was over she lay in his arms, smiling up into his face.

  ‘You know it is going to be difficult for me to forget this,’ he said as he kissed the top of her hair. ‘You’re a very skilful woman.’

  ‘Ah, but you must,’ she said. ‘As we agreed.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Like you must forget the magician now too,’ she said. ‘His punishment is in hand.’

  Suddenly Süleyman felt his whole body go cold.

  ‘Gonca . . .’

  She turned over and looked into his eyes. ‘Out of evil has come good,’ she said. ‘We are safe and the illusions are at an end. The children will be avenged.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  The look of horror on his face made her laugh. ‘In the afterlife,’ she said. ‘In hell.’

  ‘Oh.’

  A little later he got up, washed and dressed. He then made his way to the front door with Gonca, still in her robe, following. Just before she opened the door she kissed him and then she said, ‘You know, for gypsies in a place like this, the death camps the magician’s people built in Europe mean very little. But when one of our own dies, well . . .’

  ‘What?’

  She opened the door and pushed him into the street.

  ‘We make our own arrangements,’ she said, and then she laughed before closing the door after him. Several barely dressed waifs flew to his feet begging ‘Bey effendi’ for small notes or coins. Some of them, he noted, were Gonca’s own children.

  CHAPTER 24

  Ali Saka and Christoph Bauer eventually admitted to taking part in İrfan Şay’s films of Max Esterhazy’s ceremonies. Saka, who at some point had decided that saying he was being influenced by the Devil might help, was a particularly pitiful sight. There was no actual evidence, however, that either of them had actually taken part in the murders. They had been committed by the tall figure with its metal-covered penis. Max or a demon – it depended largely upon one’s point of view and beliefs.

  Bauer, a far more pragmatic individual, probably by virtue of his being a senior hospital official, admitted to stealing several litres of human blood from his employers. A Satanist, Bauer wasn’t what would have normally been considered Max Esterhazy’s type. Except that Max saw in Bauer and his perversions, plus his friendship with the amateur pornographer Şay, the chance to make money. Bauer claimed that Max had actively sought him out. He had, he’d said, been looking for one in touch with the Devil. Whether he had decided to do this in addition to saving the city by magical means or whether the money was the subservient motive was not and probably would never be known.

  Two weeks later, İkmen and Süleyman met on İstiklal Caddesi for an evening drink. The weather had turned now and, although not cold, they did need to wear their jackets as opposed to carrying them across their shoulders. İkmen, who was rather fond of the James Joyce Irish pub – and its pints of Guinness – suggested they go there. But on their way to the pub they did just both pause at Atlas Pasaj. Groups of young, black-clad kids were already assembling for the evening – thankfully without that naughty child Fitnat Topal. She had been banned from the area in the wake of her assignation with the former proprietor of the Hammer.

  ‘We became fixated on this place and its habitués,’ Süleyman said. ‘Quite wrongly.’

  ‘You successfully identified a link from the dead youngsters to this particular zeitgeist,’ İkmen said. ‘They’re very visible, these kids, and they wear their devilish associations with pride.’

  ‘But they’re not all bad.’

  ‘No.’ İkmen sighed. ‘Silly and easily led, yes. But they’re just young.’

  ‘Like Çöktin?’

  İkmen took his friend’s arm in his and propelled him along through the early evening crowds on İstiklal Caddesi.

  ‘You haven’t managed to persuade him to stay then?’ İkmen said wearily.

  ‘No. He says he let me down, over his involvement with his cousin and the film subtitling.’

  ‘It was stupid,’ İkmen said.

  ‘Yes, but it’s not going any further,’ Süleyman replied. ‘Hüsnü Gunay is not this hacker Mendes, neither is he the author of the obscene images. Provided İsak doesn’t do it again, it’s over.’

  İkmen stopped and raised a finger up to Süleyman’s face. ‘Provided it’s over,’ he said. ‘And remember that the lawyer, Öz, knows about it too. Word gets out, Mehmet. I know it is sad and I will miss Çöktin myself, but I do think it is for the best. He’s young, İnşallah, he will prosper. You know I wouldn’t have been so lenient as you have been, don’t you? He would have been gone by now.’

  Süleyman shrugged.
Sometimes İkmen could be extremely hard when one was least expecting it. After all, it wasn’t as if he was political or anything, and in fact he had often expressed sympathy with Çöktin’s people. But, Süleyman supposed, he was probably thinking of the department as a whole and the effect such a scandal would have upon it.

  They walked in silence until they got to just past the Alkazar Sinema when İkmen said, ‘So this hacker, Mendes, who is he?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ Süleyman said. ‘And according to both Hüsnü Gunay and Çöktin we probably never will. Something about routing data via South America – I don’t know. But the newsgroups we wanted to track, although we know they are used by Goths and transsexuals, are relatively harmless and so, unsavoury as it may be, we must let them get on with it for the time being. We don’t even know whether Mendes is local or not. Because of Max and his associations the word Mendes has demonic associations for us. But it is also a Spanish surname, you know.’

  ‘That image, though,’ İkmen said. ‘The thirteen . . .’

  ‘Mendes drew it as a joke for his, or her, friend, Hüsnü Gunay,’ Süleyman said. ‘Gunay apparently e-mailed or whatever at length to Mendes about his Gothic interests, his amused and cynical involvement in the Hammer scene. Mendes and Gunay must have found it hilarious to have a stupid and obscene drawing penned by the former in the club. Gunay, although a sometime customer up at Atlas, is very cutting about the place. Full of what he describes as “ignorant dilettantes” – by which I assume he means people not as serious about life, philosophy and computers as he is.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  There was a very pleasant smell of lamb on the air that, mixed with the cigarette smoke from various sources, almost made İkmen hungry. But he carried on walking. Guinness, so Mehmet’s wife, Zelfa, had once told him, contains all the essential nutrients needed by humans and so best wait for his ‘meal’ at the James Joyce. ‘I wonder how the image got from the club to the places of worship?’

  ‘Unless we catch the person doing it, I don’t suppose we’ll ever know,’ Süleyman said. ‘Those Goth kids are very loyal to each other and their cause.’

  ‘Such negativity!’ İkmen said with furious upraised hands. ‘But then I can’t blame them. Poor kids. Living in a bizarre world of constant communication, horrific violence both real and fictional, and now the threat of all-out chemical warfare. The so-called “free” world we live in is manipulated by a man incapable of pronouncing common words in his own language. What hope is there?’

  Süleyman smiled.

  İkmen, seeing this, said, ‘I sound like a mad old man, don’t I?’

  ‘A little. Even if you are right,’ Süleyman said, and then changed the subject. ‘I hear that Metin is going to be returning to work as soon as the hospital allows.’

  ‘Yes. I spoke to his wife. She’s not happy about it, but . . .’ İkmen shrugged. ‘Men like Metin, really poor boys, have so much to prove. The deprivation of Ümraniye still haunts him and, I mean, you saw his father. What a mess! It’s difficult for any of us to escape from our pasts. Look at Max.’

  ‘Yes. And he shot Metin, didn’t he?’

  ‘With İrfan Şay’s pistol, yes,’ İkmen sighed. ‘Having failed to pick up Çiçek’s sigil the first time he returned to the apartment he must have been desperate that second time. It’s amazing to me that he forgot it in the first place. Max was always so organised. Perhaps the strain of doing what he did, the sheer complication of the operation, caused him to lose track of exactly what he was doing. You know, the last time we spoke, before the boat and everything, I noticed that his hands shook when he picked up his coffee cup. Makes one think. Maybe he was unwell too.’

  ‘Or maybe you’re just looking for excuses for him, Çetin?’ Süleyman stopped to light a cigarette outside a pastane, its art nouveau window filled by a huge pyramid of sticky baklava. But when İkmen didn’t answer he went on to a different tack. ‘You heard from his sister?’

  ‘Yes,’ İkmen said. ‘The Metropolitan police contacted her and gave her some indication about what had happened, but then she called me. Poor woman. I said “I wish I had a body for you to mourn and to bury” – I said I wished that Max hadn’t died. You know, she told me what Max had studied at Oxford. Strange he never said. It was theology – destined for a career in the priesthood.’

  ‘What changed his mind?’

  ‘She doesn’t know. Maybe it was the conjuring club he became involved with at university, maybe it was his father, maybe he didn’t really change his mind until he came here and met Rebbe Baruh. I don’t know. But, you know, even when, at one point, I thought that perhaps he’d killed our old friend Alison all those years ago, I still couldn’t quite believe that he was totally bad. His sister said that she found an old diary of Max’s from when he was about twelve. She read out to me a sentence he’d written on the first page. It said something like, “I’m moving to the light. I pray that God will not reject me.”’

  They started walking again, but silently for a little while now. There really wasn’t much one could say with regard to Max’s childish pronouncement. What he had been and what he eventually became were, they both knew, only reflections of what he had experienced. The essence of Max remained the same.

  ‘So how is Çiçek?’ Süleyman asked.

  İkmen smiled. ‘She’s fine,’ he said. ‘And you’ll be very happy to know that you have resumed your place in her heart as a young uncle figure. You know, Mehmet, I really do wonder whether that spell, that sigil Max worked on Çiçek, did affect her. After all, if she hadn’t been pining over you then she would have been far less susceptible to his suggestions.’

  ‘They didn’t find Rohypnol in her blood?’

  ‘No. But then apparently it is notoriously difficult to detect. A lot like little Ülkü Ayla.’

  ‘Still no sign of her?’

  ‘No.’ İkmen sighed heavily. ‘Poor kid could be anywhere. I know she wasn’t actually dumped, but it’s not uncommon for people like Max to bring youngsters like Ülkü from the east to the city and then dispense with them. They don’t work hard enough or their manners are too rough. Thrown out, they just drift. It’s a shame because Max did, I think, really care about Ülkü in his own strange way.’

  They reached the door of the pub and İkmen paused before going in.

  ‘And what of Zelfa?’ he said.

  Süleyman sighed. ‘Well, she has at least agreed to come back and talk,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what will happen. I miss her.’

  And he did. His one interlude with Gonca had been fun but, like a very rich chocolate, it aroused the senses without satisfying them. Also now it made him feel a little sick too. But then maybe that was because he, and he knew İkmen too, harboured some suspicions about her with regard to Max’s continued disappearance. Whether Max were dead or alive, it was possible that Gonca could know his whereabouts. It was possible that Gonca could have killed him too. But, as the gypsy herself had told him, there was no point in pursuing the magician any further now. And perhaps she was right.

  ‘Well, learning to drink Guinness properly will help,’ İkmen said as he held the door open for his friend to enter. ‘Come on, let me buy you a pint.’

  Süleyman frowned.

  ‘It’s rather less than a litre and rather more than a half,’ he said. ‘According to an Irishman I once met in Karaköy – don’t ask how – it is what God would drink if He had a human form. Enlightenment in a glass was how he described it.’ He smiled. ‘Maybe Max should have spent less time with his books and his spells and more time in the pub.’

  Süleyman, smiling also, walked ahead of İkmen into the midst of the enthusiastic Friday night crowd.

  Brother Constantine had become quite a regular spectator at the drama that was the Cohen house renovation. And although Berekiah and Hulya weren’t always up at the site, they were on this occasion together with his mother and father – the latter sitting hunched up in his wheelchair in the middle of the still unruly ga
rden.

  ‘Mr Cohen?’

  Both Berekiah and Balthazar looked down towards the gaping hole where once a grand entrance gate had stood. When the young man saw the monk he put down the hammer he had been using to nail back a rotted window frame and went down to greet him.

  ‘Brother Constantine. How are you?’

  ‘Better than I was,’ the monk said.

  ‘Good.’ He had, Berekiah knew, been very distressed and disturbed by the desecration of the Church of the Panaghia.

  ‘What does he want?’ Berekiah heard his father say. ‘Tell him to go away!’

  ‘Father!’

  ‘Christians!’ Balthazar spat on to the ground. Estelle, infuriated, moved his chair into a corner of the garden, pushing him into a patch of briar.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Brother Constantine,’ Berekiah said apologetically. ‘My father is a sick man, angry at the world . . .’

  ‘Maybe he needs our prayers.’

  Berekiah looked over his shoulder at his father swearing in the bush and shook his head. Angry, sexually frustrated and bitter, his father was gradually alienating everyone. Uncle Jak, now back in Britain, had promised he would visit again – but only once Berekiah and Hulya’s house was in a state to receive visitors. Another ‘holiday’ at the Cohen apartment in Karaköy would, Jak had said as he left, either result in his own suicide or Balthazar’s murder.

  ‘Anyway,’ Berekiah said, ‘what can we do for you, Brother Constantine? Would you like tea?’

  ‘No.’ The monk placed his hand over his heart and then smiled. ‘No, thank you, Mr Cohen. I came simply to tell you that we have discovered who has been desecrating our places of worship,’ he sighed, ‘and sadly, it was one of our own.’

  ‘A monk?’

  ‘No. But one who used to be of our number,’ he said. ‘A young man – an acolyte once – now he moves amongst some very strange people up in Beyoğlu.’ He leaned in towards Berekiah. ‘Devil worship, you know.’

  ‘So how did you find him? Have you told the police?’

  ‘He was caught in the act,’ Brother Constantine said, ‘at the Aya Triada in Taksim. One of our own, Orthodox, churches. He was known and recognised,’ he added somewhat menacingly.