by Jacqui Rose
‘Yes, better,’ Savage said, wondering how anything could be much worse.
*
When Savage went back round to the front of the house she found Calter doing her best to intervene in an argument between one of the builders and a young man in a smart suit.
‘Mr Evershed, ma’am,’ Calter said and then nodded to a little way down the road where a heavily-pregnant woman stood leaning against a big BMW with a high-end paint job and a massive spoiler on the rear. ‘And his wife.’
Evershed couldn’t have been more than early twenties. He had close-cropped dark hair and a brash suit with lapels which were too wide. His wrist bore a chunky watch, gold like his cufflinks. He gave little more than a flick of the head to acknowledge Savage as Calter introduced her.
Calter explained that Mr and Mrs Evershed were the owners of number seventy-five. They had bought the property only a month ago with the intention of renovating, but hadn’t yet moved in.
‘Waiting until the sprog is born,’ Evershed said, turning to Savage now. ‘Once that’s out the way I’ll be free to deal with this. We’ll do the place up, add fifty K to the value, sell it on and move up. Easy money.’
‘So you were getting some work done before you moved in?’ Savage asked.
‘That’s just the point.’ Evershed raised an accusing finger at the builder. Bared his teeth like a dog. ‘I don’t know what the hell these cowboys are doing here. I never asked them to do any work. First thing I know about it is when I get a call from our new next door neighbour saying there’s a police car parked out front. As far as I am concerned these idiots are bloody trespassing on private property and you should arrest them forthwith for criminal damage.’
‘And?’ Savage turned to the builder, a man in his fifties, weary as if he’d seen it all.
‘Don’t blame me.’ The man held one hand up and then reached into the breast pocket of his donkey jacket, pulled out a little spiral-bound notepad and showed the booklet to Savage. ‘Job’s down on my worksheet. Number seventy-five Lester Close. Pull up old patio slabs and remove soil and rubble. Dig holes for footings and lay concrete in preparation for new conservatory. Boss fixed us up with it Friday. Short notice, like, but he said it was an urgent job. We had to be in and out by the end of today.’
‘Well you’ve got the wrong address, haven’t you?’ Evershed said, jabbing his finger again. ‘So I suggest you call your boss and tell him he’s cocked up. Then you can go round the back and clear up whatever mess you’ve made.’
‘That won’t be possible, I’m afraid,’ Savage said. ‘Not for a day or two at least. The whole of this property is now a crime scene.’
‘What? You’re joking, right?’
‘Sorry, no.’ Savage closed her eyes for a second and wondered how to explain about the little girl. She decided something approaching the truth was best. ‘We’ve found the body of a child beneath the patio.’
Evershed’s wife had walked up from the car and now she reached out for her husband, grasping for his arm with one hand, the other moving to her swollen belly.
‘Nightmare,’ Evershed said, shaking his head and then wondering aloud about the resale value of the place.
Ten minutes later he was still talking figures as he ducked into his car. His wife stood on the other side of the vehicle for a moment, looking first at the house, then Savage and then staring far into the distance at something beyond the rooftops at the end of the street. She got in, the door clunking shut with a noise which had a finality about it, Savage thinking about endings in her own life too.
It’s payback time. Deadly payback time …
Enjoy this extract? Buy the rest of the book here:
BAD BLOOD: 9780007518180
The Puzzle Behind The Istanbul Puzzle, a feature by
Laurence O’Bryan
The third novel in my puzzle conspiracy/mystery series (The Manhattan Puzzle) will arrive this coming October (2013). The inspiration for the series, and all the locations that flow from it, Jerusalem, Cairo, London and New York, began for me in Istanbul, in Hagia Sophia to be exact.
Hagia Sophia is a place of practical magic and real mystery, which is little know outside the Arab world.
You could argue, with some justification, that St Paul’s in London is the greatest building in the world. But Hagia Sophia was consecrated 1,711 years before it. And Hagia Sophia has been in continuous use since 537AD.
Do you know of any other building in the world you can say that about?
Others might propose that the Taj Mahal is the greatest building in the world. But only Hagia Sophia has been the seat, the Vatican as it were, of two of the world’s great religions, Orthodox Christianity and Sunni Islam.
When I first visited Hagia Sophia, almost twenty years ago, I was amazed how such a Byzantine jewel, embellished in Ottoman times, could be so little known. So I studied it. I bought guidebooks, coffee table books and history books about the building. I found out that it has a unique history, full of violence and majesty, piety, spectacle and low deeds.
But it wasn’t the history that intrigued me most. It was a mystery I came up against as I perused the plans of the building.
Hagia Sophia was the Church of Saint Sophia, Holy Wisdom, a concept of the Divine Feminine that survives in name only from an early interpretation of Christianity. The current church was built by the Roman Emperor Justinian, and converted into a mosque in 1453 when the Ottomans snuffed out the Byzantine Empire. All this is well known.
What isn’t known is what is in its basements, its tombs and its catacombs.
In all the major Christian churches of its era there are extensive underground areas. In St Peter’s in Rome there are the catacombs and access to St Peter’s tomb through a stairway almost in the centre of its main aisle. In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem there is the Chapel of Adam beneath Golgotha and underground rooms that are still being argued about. But in Hagia Sophia the plans in every guidebook show nothing underground. Not even a tiny storage room.
And it can’t be said that the rock in that area is too hard to dig. One of the most important ancient underground water cisterns is about a hundred metres away and deep underground. The Basilica Cistern is a magnificent monument to Roman ingenuity also built by the Emperor Justinian. It features an underground forest of 336 columns, nine metres high, spaced 4.9 metres apart. These people knew how to build underground.
In the last few years, investigations have taken place in cisterns and tunnels that are acknowledged to exist under Hagia Sophia, but little has been revealed of the findings.
Dr Ken Dark (Director of the Research Centre for Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at the University of Reading) had this to say about the mystery of what is under Hagia Sophia: ‘Although the recent Turkish work has been important and interesting, if permission and funding could be obtained, a full study of the cisterns and substructures under the building would be a major advance in archaeological knowledge of Hagia Sophia.’
There are myths aplenty about what really lies under Hagia Sophia. One says that the devil is caged there. Another claims that the last Byzantine Emperor took refuge in the walls of Hagia Sophia.
Istanbul suffered greatly during the Black Death and in earlier plagues, so it is possible that underground areas were sealed up because they contained plague pits. It is also possible that underground areas were bricked up before the Ottoman armies stormed the city in 1453.
There would have been every incentive to keep religious icons and relics in the city until the end. The last great siege of Constantinople continued from April 6, 1453 until May 29. Orthodox icons and relics were believed by the Byzantine defenders to have magical powers to defend the city. They had been effective many times before.
Sieges had broken after icons had been carried around Constantinople’s walls.
The last Byzantine Emperor, Constantine XI, would also have had every incentive to rally at Hagia Sophia. He could well have taken refuge and have died
there. Hagia Sophia was the symbolic heart of the city. It is still the symbol of Istanbul. Just look at the sides of buses and the symbols on manhole covers when you go there.
Those in charge before the city walls were finally overrun, on that fateful Tuesday in 1453, had motivation and plenty of time to conceal many things and to sow deceptions. Ottoman intentions had been clear for years.
There are rumours that a treasure trove of Orthodox artefacts went missing when the Ottomans took the city. There are also rumours that when the Fourth Crusade sacked the city in 1204, a savage act of defilement, that many of the original relics and treasures of Byzantium were lost, never to be seen again. The houses in St Mark’s Square in Venice were looted then, and perhaps even the Shroud of Turin originated in Constantinople.
Other relics, such as fragments of the True Cross, the Undefiled Lance, and the Sacred Winding Sheet were reported to be in the city before it was ransacked during the Fourth Crusade.
Hagia Sophia was designed by Isidore of Miletus and mathematician Anthemius of Tralles. Both were known for their interest in tunnels and aqueducts. But isn’t, I hear someone say, the tomb of the Doge of Venice, victor of the Fourth Crusade, located in Hagia Sophia? Yes, it is, but it wasn’t constructed until 1205, and it’s not impressive. It’s a slab in the floor of the upper gallery. Why they put an important tomb in the upper gallery is another question.
I have my own views on what lies beneath Hagia Sophia. I have written a novel, first published in early 2012 and soon to be available in 10 languages, called The Istanbul Puzzle, which describes in detail what may lie hidden beneath this great building. But that is a work of fiction, although I have had private access to some truly amazing information about Hagia Sophia.
What I would like to see now, and I know others would too, is money raised and permission given for a proper modern non-destructive investigation of the underground areas beneath Hagia Sophia.
There has been great progress in ground penetrating radar and other techniques in the past few decades. There has also been some exploration of the drains and passages under Hagia Sophia and a movie of that work is currently looking for funding. But isn’t it time for a modern archaeological investigation of what lies beneath Hagia Sophia?
Hagia Soiphia is a museum now, so the religious significance is far less than if it was a working mosque. It was converted into a museum in 1935 by the hero and first President of the Republic of Turkey, Atatürk.
When Hagia Sophia became a museum and the powers of the Sunni Caliphate were transferred to the Turkish parliament, many in the Islamic world were enraged. Indeed, some are still trying to resurrect the Caliphate. That has been one of the main objectives of many Islamist extremists for the past seventy-eight years. To understand why, just imagine what the reaction would have been if Mussolini had turned the Vatican into a museum.
In 1996 Hagia Sophia was placed on the World Monuments watch list. Water was leaking and the level of humidity was rising. Commendable work on the dome and roof was undertaken by the Turkish Ministry of Culture. This work was completed in 2006. A further phase of restoration, with a major sponsor, is recommended. Surely this phase should incorporate a proper investigation of the underground areas already acknowledged to exist? The publicity, and increase in tourists alone, would justify the costs.
Hagia Sophia has been a museum for a long time. Its majesty and the fact that it has survived with its glory intact is a real credit to the Turkish Republic and the Ottoman Empire that preceded it.
We may not find all the treasures that could be hidden under there. But I believe we will find something. Follow my blog at www.lpobryan.com if you would like to learn more about this project. And read The Istanbul Puzzle if you would like to learn a little bit more about the magic of this building, Hagia Sophia, the greatest building in the world.
An archaic manuscript contains a secret, one that could change the world …
An exclusive extract from Laurence’s new novel,
The Manhattan Puzzle
‘Go for it. The rougher the better, girl.’ The man had a black silk blindfold tied around his head. He spoke slowly, his voice thick with desire.
Xena, naked like the man, went to the door and unlocked it.
‘What’s that? Getting your toys out? Wow, this is even better than you promised.’
Lord Bidoner walked into the panic room. He closed the door behind him, pressed the button to turn on the air management system. The scrubber in the roof could remove the smoke from a blazing fire and turn the output into a vapor trail.
The man, spread-eagled and handcuffed to the stainless steel bed frame, had an expectant smile on his face.
‘Go on, do it,’ he said.
His evening was only just beginning.
The navy Calvin Klein silk suit hanging from the stool beside the bed gave an indication of who he was. Lord Bidoner examined the man’s wallet. His bank ID card, a credit card sized piece of aluminium with an embedded proximity chip, and his family name, Hare, embossed on it, confirmed what they already knew.
The head of global security at BXH, one of the world’s few truly global banks, was lying, face up and naked in front of him.
‘Don’t keep me waiting, girl.’
‘I won’t,’ purred Zena. She stroked his leg, then his inner thigh. He quivered in anticipation.
The man’s wife would surely appreciate the photographs of this event, but Lord Bidoner had more pressing concerns.
He nodded at Xena.
She was dressed in a low cut skin-tight black cat suit that fitted her thin frame perfectly. The man laid out in front of them was expecting something memorable, from the woman he’d met in the champagne bar opposite Grand Central two weeks before. Xena’s story, about being an Ethiopian diplomat’s daughter, and her eager smile, had captivated him.
She ran her finger down the man’s stomach. It trembled under her touch.
‘Don’t stop, honey. Don’t stop.’
With her other hand Zena clicked on the silver Turboflame sculpture’s blowtorch, the most expensive model in the world with its 1500c flame. She held the gently hissing, blue, inch long flame up, watched it glow brighter as her fingers moved slowly down his stomach.
‘What’s that?’ he said.
She didn’t reply.
Hare’s voice was still confident when he spoke. ‘Was that your sister who just came in? Is she gonna join us?’
‘We have a surprise for you,’ said Xena.
The man pulled on the handcuffs. All he did was get them to cut into his skin. It had taken a bit of persuasion, this was their third meeting, for Xena to get him to go this far, but he trusted her now. And he’d made it clear that he wasn’t going to put up with any crap. He’d break the bed if she didn’t release him when he gave the password.
She’d smiled, hugged him and agreed.
They’d even laughed about making a written contract.
‘What’s the surprise?’ He shook the bed, testing its resilience and the strength of the handcuffs. He’d assumed they were easily breakable toys, like a previous pair she’d shown him. But he was wrong.
And he didn’t know that the bed was bolted to the reinforced slab of the panic room floor either. Though he might have guessed there was something wrong when it refused to move under him.
‘Just a friend of mine. We have a little question for you,’ said Xena.
‘Yeah?’ He was still curious, still expectant of further delights.
‘What is the password for the security system at BXH?’
The man didn’t reply verbally. He shook the bed from side to side trying to break free. He didn’t know that his only hope was if his thrashing managed to separate his hands from his wrists, and his feet from his ankles.
And very few people have the strength to do that.
Xena waved the blue flame, raised it, as if offering it up. It flickered higher.
The odour of the burning butane gas filled the room like bad p
erfume. The sound the blow torch made was a threatening hissing now. Xena placed the tip of the flame against the top edge of the whiskey tumbler the man had been drinking from. The glass turned blue.
‘Wait until you feel this. Then you will tell me,’ said Xena. Her tone had changed. It was demanding now.
‘What? Fu …’ The end of that confident sentence was bitten off by the piercing scream that came from deep in his throat. Xena had touched the flame against the pale skin of his shoulder.
He began thrashing. Like a fish flailing. He moved from side to side, squirming away from the skin blistering heat. But he couldn’t move fast enough. And his legs and arms were stretched out tight.
Easy targets.
The smell in the room changed and the atmosphere with it. Pain and whimpering, sizzling and guttural roars filled the air. By the fourth burn, unexpectedly on his cheek, for a painfully long second, the screaming turned to whimpering.
The man had become a dog.
Then Xena asked him again.
‘The password, please.’ She spoke softly,as if they were still playing a game.
‘If you give it up I will release you. You can explain these little burns to your wife. But the ones I will inflict next will require hospital treatment. Or the services of a morgue.’ She clicked the flame off, then pressed the hot tip hard and fast into the biggest blister she had inflicted, near his ankle.
‘What do you say, Mr Hare?’
The man answered with a defiant, animal roar. He shook the bed under him. The last vestige of his pride in working at BXH bellowed out of him.
Xena lit the flame again. She reached forward, touched it to his chest, ran it fast down the middle until the smoke from burning body hair filled the room with a sickly odour.
‘Stop, Stop,!’ he screamed. His body squirmed to escape the heat.