Onur began to answer but was cut off by Karim, which was just the way Hanom preferred it. “We are celebrating today my dear Hanom and what a day of celebration it will be – fine dining and the best of the city.” he said, his arms spread wide as if he had taken to the stage, causing Hanom to giggle. Onur said that his brother was fuller of himself than usual as he’d just landed a new job.
“A new job brother but you don’t tell the whole story,” Karim turned and winked at Hanom.
“He is jealous as I make much more money than he does now – 100,000 lira a year to do with as I please.”
Hanom was impressed, “And what do you need to do to earn this princely sum?”
“I am to be the personal assistant of one Mr Eser Ozan – you may have heard of him?” Hanom certainly had. Eser Ozan had a reputation as a rising businessman, tipped to join the Turkish elite but his reputation was mired in scandal and it was widely rumoured he operated in partnership with the city’s organised crime network.
“Is that a good idea Karim?” Hanom knew her friend had been wild in his younger days. Karim had once put a man in hospital after being insulted at a party. His actions had landed him in serious trouble but Hanom imagined she knew what kind of man he really was and that violence was not in his nature. Karim always treated Hanom like a sister and she was content to see him happy.
“Oh don’t believe the gossips Hanom,” Karim said, laughing, “Mr Eser is going places and so am I. He invests in the Metro that Onur here has been toiling so hard over. One day soon I’ll be paying my brother’s wages, isn’t that so?” Onur was clearly unconvinced.
“One day at a time brother. One day at a time.”
Hanom was lifted by these little confrontations. She always felt the two were in some way competing for her attention although nothing had ever come of it. She wondered if she would mind if one of them made a pass. All three had known each other for about ten years and it seemed odd to Hanom to think of the brothers as people who might feature in her love life. She blushed at the thought of it and was caught out immediately.
“Ah but Hanom you are turning red in the sun, you must remember to protect that beautiful face of yours. But we must leave now. Until next time,” Karim said, turning to leave with a wave, leaving Hanom to her thoughts once more. She hadn’t noticed but the fountain had come on in the pond and her small world now seemed more alive than ever before. Hanom made a mental note to make sure Karim would be able to make it to her birthday party. Of course she would have to ask Onur too as it would be far too obvious just to ask Karim to come alone. ‘I am a lady after all.’ As she picked up her water to feast on another burst of fresh cool water Hanom didn’t even notice that the bottle was warm. Hanom did not know it yet but her world had already changed forever.
Bishopton, Scotland, February 20th 2010
Eric Sanderson did not know what to make of the discovery of Stevie Davidson’s body. The initial press reports suggested his death had been accidental. It seemed that Stevie had broken into the church and taken refuge in the bell tower before somehow falling to his death. It didn’t make sense. Eric was sure the truth would emerge before too long but he was feeling particularly agitated today. He had been getting angry at the slightest of things. Earlier for no good reason he had smashed a chair off the floor after dropping his laptop. He had been surfing the internet looking for more information on the news sites. There was no doubt the stress of the last few days were starting to get to him. ‘Stevie bloody Davidson, what good ever came of you?’ Eric locked his caravan door and made his way to the Range Rover. He looked over at the house and wondered if it hadn’t changed shape again, dipped deeper into its own foundations. His reference point was the TV aerial which was no longer standing straight up but leaned over to one side, and the more it dipped the more anxious he became. As he drove Eric decided he would try to put the investigation to the back of his mind. He hadn’t taken any time off work as he knew this week was going to be an important one at the wind farm. They had reached a delicate part of the process which would require blasting through solid granite, which eventually would form a level base for a 400 foot turbine. He had been surprised at how much he loved the work. Having spent 20 years on the farm he had found he had hidden talents and getting involved with the Madoch Group had been a godsend. The fact that he had money to invest had of course helped his cause. Mr Madoch had been keen to speak to him after he knew the colour of his money. Eric Sanderson had fallen in love with wind power. With expertise in the area from his own small scale effort he had been immediately taken on and was now a senior partner in Moorland Wind, which was majority owned by the Madoch Group. The past no longer mattered, or at least it hadn’t until that copper had turned up and that bloody boy had died. Eric Sanderson cursed the turn in his fortunes as he turned off the M77 and onto the newly laid tarmac road which marked the start of the Moorland Wind site.
The wind farm was already amongst the biggest in the UK with 99 turbines erected and with another 150 to follow. Eaglesham Moor was a bleak and blasted place, with few plus points save for its one abundant asset – the wind. The site office, and Eric Sanderson’s base for the next eighteen months, was a series of drab grey portacabins which had been formed into an onsite village. There was a fully functioning canteen, which catered for the 215 people working there. Once the project was completed there would only be a handful left to maintain the turbines but before that there was land to be cleared and turbines to be erected. Despite everything that was going on around him it was this task that occupied Sanderson as he pulled up outside his office.
“Hi Gill, anything I need to know?” His secretary gave him an accusatory glance as she surveyed the mounds of snow Eric had brought in from the short journey from car to office and then proceeded to scrape off on the carpet.
“Nothing that’s not in your diary, although the weather looks likely to have delayed any blasting we might have planned. Also your partner in crime is running late.”
Eric Sanderson shared the hut with Onur Kocack, a Turkish businessman Mister Madoch had brought in from Turkey on a personal recommendation. He had a first class degree from the Teknick Universitesi in Istanbul and had years of experience working on the Istanbul Metro system. Eric thought they were lucky to have him. Onur seemed distant at times and his English sometimes left a lot to be desired but there was no doubting his value to the operation. Looking at his mobile Eric noticed that Onur had sent him a text saying he was due in half an hour and that they had ‘serious business to discuss’. Eric Sanderson cleared his mind and tried to focus on the day ahead.
Arbogast had been called to an emergency meeting with DCI Rosalind Ying at the Chief Constable’s office about four hours after the discovery of Stevie Davidson’s body. Norrie Smith had been silent when they arrived. His was a large office, clad mainly in antique mahogany. Norrie would complain, to anyone that would listen, that it was a highly impractical office but that he had been unable to change it because the furniture had been there since the building had opened. Dragged from the 1960s through to the 21st century, the fixtures and fittings struggled to cope with the demands of modern policing. Computer cables were tied together with tape, with a vast array of wires leading to the room’s only socket which was inconveniently located at the door, on the wrong side of the room. Arbogast had been staring past the Chief Constable trying to get an idea of where exactly the panoramic window looked out onto. He could see tree tops so he assumed the office must be at the front of the building looking out onto Blytheswood Square. Norrie Smith poured three small cups of coffee into ornate red edged Wedgewood porcelain tea cups which he assumed had once been meant for special occasions but now looked ready for a charity bin.
“I’ll get straight to the point,” Norrie Smith said. He stopped and looked at Arbogast and Ying, failing to get straight to the point, but they could see that it was in the post. “I’ll be taking over as the Senior Investigating Officer in this case. DCI Ying you have done a gr
eat job on this so far and please don’t take this as a personal criticism. After a slow start I think we’re making good progress. But the discovery of Stevie Davidson has changed things. For all the furore of the press about paedophiles on the run, it doesn’t look like our Mister Davidson is the main man in this case. He may have been involved in some way but this is now starting to look like a much bigger deal. Maybe the girl has been abducted by a paedophile ring? For all we know she may not be in the country. This is now an international case and we will have to broaden our scope. With respect, DCI Ying, while you’ve got clout out in Lanarkshire I can get more done more quickly. We’ll be dealing with Europol now while forces across the country are actively looking for this girl. This girl—” he searched his desk for inspiration.
“Her name’s Kovan Kocack sir,” Arbogast said, mainly to save Ying from having to answer. He knew she would be gutted by the decision but she would also understand the reasons.
“—Yes the Kocack girl. DCI Ying, I want you and DI Arbogast to continue as lead detectives, but you will be reporting directly to me on this now on a day-to-day basis. I’ll take the controlling role in the investigation. We’re a few days in now and I’m going to be reviewing the case to see where we are and, if appropriate, make suggestions on possible new avenues. Understood?” The question was rhetorical and they all knew it but Arbogast and Ying both nodded their assent, like plastic dogs in the back of old cars. “OK good, well where are we now?”
Ying began with Stevie Davidson “It was a major shock to have found him where he was, but it looks like he fell from the bell tower. We have matched DNA samples from the splintered door. I’m not sure why he went there and I’m not convinced he was alone,” Norrie Smith nodded and gestured his approval for Ying to continue in a movement which reminded Arbogast of a Royal wave. Arbogast was starting to get angry as he saw the investigation getting bogged down in ego, split loyalties and too much talking, but forced himself to bite his tongue.
“I’m not sure,” Ying said, shifting in her seat and looking at the ceiling, “that Stevie would have left the bus with the child and then immediately gone their separate ways.”
“Unless something happened before then?”
“Well yes but what could have happened? Why not just go back to the bus where it was warm. There must have been someone else there, a third man if you will. Perhaps they met at the church? It’s an easy landmark to find. I think we can rule out anything having happened to the girl early on. We’ve had half the force over that area and we’ve turned up nothing.”
Arbogast had had enough, “Look we’ve been bursting our arses over this case. The weather out there is atrocious. The snow has covered all tracks and there is literally no evidence from the scene. We should have an autopsy report from Stevie Davidson by lunchtime although it does look as if he’s fallen and broken his neck. I’d agree there must be someone else involved here and the pointers at the moment are looking to Mary and John Clark.”
“Of which I hear there has been a further development?” Norrie Smith said, although the question was more of an accusation than anything else.
“He’s gone missing,” Ying said, wondering who in her team had been leaking information, “We haven’t been able to get a hold of him yet. Arbogast’s source says he was supposed to be meeting with Kovan Kocack and Mary on the bus. We’re still trying to track down the girl’s mother but that should just be a matter of time. I’ve got the tech guys onto it and we should be able to pin her down through mobile phone tracking.”
“But she’s scared boss,” Arbogast said, “She’s scared her daughter will be harmed. I’d say it’s significant she thinks the girl is still alive.”
Norrie Smith was unimpressed, “But you still haven’t been able to speak to her face to face yet and the father also seems to be eluding your powers of detection?”
“John Clark you mean well yes I was coming to that,” DCI Ying was starting to get annoyed. This had been the biggest case she had handled from Motherwell and it wasn’t going to look good that it had been taken off her – she needed to get a result. “The Home Office has finally provided us with a new address but it hasn’t led to anything yet. We’ve tried the house but there doesn’t seem to be anyone home. We have a patrol car outside the flat on Crow Road. It’s been rented in Onur Kocack’s name but his neighbours say they haven’t seen much of him. He’ll turn up. In the meantime we’re trying to locate him at his work. He’s a registered engineer with Moorland Wind which is managing that wind farm at Eaglesham.”
Norrie Smith knew the one she meant, the turbines could be seen from his window springing up on the horizon to the south of Glasgow.
“Arbogast will be going out there after this meeting to try and find him.”
It was Arbogast’s turn to talk, “It’s something of a coincidence that the father of the missing child works with Eric Sanderson don’t you think? I don’t know if they work closely together or not but they are in the same field, if you’ll excuse the pun.” His joke went unnoticed or if not it was certainly unappreciated. Arbogast made a mental note to keep the puns for the pub. I could use a drink now, he thought, “but where was I?”
“You were telling us about the Sanderson tie in with the family,” Norrie Smith said, “although I must say we are putting a lot of stock in the word of strangers. The only one of us to have met with any of the Kocack clan is you, Arbogast, and that was in a strip bar. Meanwhile the person that put us onto the family is currently one of our main suspects, namely Mary Clark – you have to admit it doesn’t look good.”
It was Norrie Smith who was becoming impatient now and the atmosphere in the room was becoming uncomfortable.
“Mary Clark is the key to this,” Arbogast said, “She’s refusing to speak to us just now so we’ll have to apply more pressure. I’m going to put out a missing persons appeal for the husband and hope we get something back from that. In the meantime I’m going to go and see Sanderson again. There’s something in this relationship he has with his daughter, I’m sure of it. She complained in the past that he abused her in a secret location and now we have a missing girl. I also think John Clark’s involved, I just need to establish how.”
When they left the room Arbogast turned to Ying and reassured her that she was still in the driving seat, but she wasn’t interested. Arbogast wasn’t happy either. He had quickly come to trust in Ying. She had welcomed him to the team but more importantly she had let him take risks when he felt they were needed. It was her that had sanctioned the mobile phone drop at the club and it was her direction that had allowed the case to get started. He had thought Rosalind Ying might have had problems with the change in personnel but she was more driven now than before.
“Listen Arbogast I don’t really know you that well as a person but you seem to have good intuition. We need to work fast and find the girl – preferably alive. I suggest we continue to pool our resources and tie these strands together. Norrie’s just doing his job, I know that but it still feels like a kick in the teeth. He’d get carpeted if he let this go on without getting more closely involved. I mean just think about all the bad headlines this has been getting and not just in the local press – I saw the story on the New York Times website – this case is making news in the US, Australia – it’s everywhere – but we’re here and we need to get this done. You’ve been here before and failed and I don’t want that to happen twice. Arbogast watched as Ying let rip. He could see that the meeting had got her adrenalin going and she was as committed as he was to closing this case.
“Fine,” he said, “let’s go.”
He waited and watched as the police went about their business. They had found the driver’s body but that didn’t matter. He knew they knew nothing. The weather had been a gift from god. The child was his now, to do with as he wished. The driver had been unfortunate but it had proved a stroke of luck. How fortunate to find a paedophile just when you needed one. He had watched the TV news when the body was found. He
couldn’t always understand the accents but so many people were shocked. One woman ‘Jessop’ had said she would miss ‘her Stevie’ so much. ‘Such a nice man to work with,’ she had said. I could not agree more. Hanom, he noticed, had been acting strangely. She obviously has not realised what has happened yet, perhaps she never will. But of course things have to move on. He had plans for so many people and so long as the police stayed four steps behind he would still be able to make the connection, to escape from this miserable freezing country and so far it had all being going to plan. Satisfied that he had done everything that had been asked of him, he checked on the girl, who was alone. She was quiet of course, as was to be expected under the circumstances. That might change when she was reunited with her mother. But it was not going to be the bright new life they’d hoped for. As he left the room the little girl looked up, he caught her glance for a fraction of a second as the light from the hall was quickly extinguished from her room. He wondered if she might come to hate him. That would be good, and just – let her learn the meaning of hate. It was all her fault after all.
13
Istanbul, Turkey, June 11th 2003
Hanom’s family had lived in the same place for the last four generations. The house was built in 1843 and over time the weather had changed the wooden framed building into a weird, warped shambles within the similarly well worn Canturkaran district of Istanbul, overlooking the Sea of Marmara. When Hanom walked these streets she felt part of something bigger, older, something she felt that others did not have. Originally her family home would have been covered with a lime facade and as such was prone to salt erosion from the sea air. Her father had told her that it had been a proud day when they put up the timber cladding to protect their home and still in this street there were few other houses that looked quite like theirs. The timber had shrunk and twisted through the years, giving the three storey structure the look of having melted in the sun. As a child Hanom had thought of it as a fairy tale gingerbread house. Her mother had told her not to be so morbid, but she hadn’t understood what she meant. The top floor had an overhang and perched over the street below as if trying to find a better view of the shimmering horizon. This was a common arrangement in the city which allowed more space upstairs while also giving shade and protection for those passing in the street. And it was here that Hanom spent her 18th birthday. Although the house stretched to quite a height there was surprisingly little space inside, although that had not stopped the influx of friends and family who had squeezed in to the narrow rooms to help her celebrate. Aunts and uncles from the country, friends of her fathers, and people she had known from school, all were here. Hanom blushed at the thought of it, she wasn’t used to so much attention but for all the fuss there was only one person she wanted to see and he wasn’t here. It was about 8:00 when Onur arrived, with flowers in hand and a smile.
Wilderness (Arbogast trilogy) Page 10