by Rik Stone
*
Mehmet continued with his surveillance and Yagmur’s pattern changed. She began spending more time at the police station; maybe the season for hurting people had arrived. At the end of each day he followed her home, hoping for an opening. He had chosen an alley to commit his deadly deed because so few people used it, but as if to contradict his theory, every time Yagmur went through someone tagged along behind her.
Friday came and she hadn’t been going into the station at weekends. He’d had enough. It had to be done on this day. But he was foiled again. When Yagmur hobbled out of the building, Ahmet was with her. She took her normal route and he walked by her side. Mehmet couldn’t endure another week of following this awful woman around, but… His heart lifted, thumped in his chest. He could take them both together.
He followed, hand firmly gripping the butt of the Welrod, but Ahmet stopped several streets before the chosen alleyway and looked around suspiciously before pulling a small package from a leather jerkin. A few words passed between him and Yagmur and he handed her the parcel. He rested an affectionate hand on her shoulder and then walked off. Yagmur secreted the packet in her overcoat and hurried on with her journey.
Mehmet shook his head, dismayed at what he’d intended doing. His vengeance wouldn’t be sated until he’d destroyed every one of those instrumental in putting his life where it was. If he’d killed Ahmet and Yagmur together, what information would he have to take him to the next step? Stupid! The thought dissolved and trembling took a hold of him on seeing Yagmur turn off into the chosen alley – alone. Now was the time.
He followed her in. The alley was clear. He lifted the Welrod and aimed. But his arm was almost flapping uncontrollably. If he pulled the trigger, chances were he’d hit her in the leg – or the head – assuming he hit her at all. He had to close the gap. He ran, but it was with spastic movement. His nervousness had him losing authority over his legs. The thought of calling it off came to mind. But the idea was overridden by images of the pleasure this sadistic torturer took in annihilating his teeth. Resolve lifted him and his footsteps obeyed his wishes.
He got near enough to touch her and yelled. “Yagmur!”
She turned, at first surprised, but then her eyes narrowed, her face hardened and shockwaves ran up Mehmet’s spine. His arms tightened by his sides, the gun peeping out as if also afraid. Yagmur was about to say something, a gurgling snarl got as far as her throat, but no further. Mehmet fired a shot. A dull thud. A bullet buried into her chest. Her body jerked backwards, hit the ground with arms and legs flailing.
She was on her back, slightly propped up by her hump, staring at Mehmet through cold, steely eyes. His skin crawled. She had recognised him. He could tell. But how could she possibly remember…? Then he realised she couldn’t; she merely knew he’d been one of her countless victims. Turning her over onto her front, Yagmur’s face remained half visible and she smiled that ugly, yellow smile as blood bubbled over her teeth. A demonic laugh wheezed from her choking throat and then in contempt it changed to a sizzling hiss.
Mehmet could stand no more. He grabbed her hair, turned her head face down and blew a hole through the base of her skull.
Reaching under her dead body, he took the package from inside the overcoat and left. As he walked away, emotions dissolved; he felt nothing – no remorse, nothing… Or so he thought. Halfway down the alley he started shaking and excruciating pain doubled him over. At first he dry-heaved and then it became the real thing. His arms pushed against the wall to hold his weight and his legs buckled. Dizziness took control as reality stepped in. He’d killed someone. A human being had died at his hands and now there was no going back; it couldn’t be undone.
How long he’d propped up that wall while spewing his guts he had no idea, but when someone shouted from the far end of the alley his senses sharpened. He ran, the sudden bout of illness miraculously disappearing.
His feet moved as swiftly as if he’d grown wings on his ankles. Ten minutes flat out and he stopped, hardly drawing breath. But he needed to wash off the stench of death that clung to him like sweat. He ran until physical exhaustion took hold of his muscles and forced him to stop. Without paying heed to Yuri’s training, he’d crossed the bridge into Galata, where he was born. It seemed strange that somehow it felt like a place of safety. He flopped down on the banks overlooking the Golden Horn and his chest heaved.
After resting, he left the grass in favour of the promenade wall, sat with his legs wide, pulled Yagmur’s parcel from his waistband and tore away the brown paper. A wedge of money, lots of it. Whatever problems he might endure when it came to kidnapping Ahmet, money wouldn’t be one of them.
He tucked the package away, put his hands on the wall and sat back, staring up into the framework of a starlit sky. The air had cooled and he was glad to be alive. There were times aplenty when it could have been him waiting for the body bag, but not now, and the shame of killing that had shuddered through his being had gone. He could rationalise what had happened. As with a soldier at war, he could justify the killing. His only wish was that he had something to wash the foul taste from his mouth.
Chapter 33
Jostled through the Beyazit Gate into the Grand Bazaar, Mehmet fought shoulder-to-shoulder with a packed crowd. Voices yelled out and the noise vibrated in his head as if someone had cupped a hand over his ear. His sense of smell was overcome by the spice stalls at the entrance. Sweaty bodies felt damp against his arm, his skin crawled and memories of Synopi made him giddy. He stopped at a marble drinking fountain, cradled his hands in the trough and doused his face with water.
Inside the bazaar, the crowds thinned as they went their own way down the multitude of alleyways snaking away from the main drag. Mehmet stayed on the central walkway, found a jewellers shop and came out wearing a fourteen-carat gold chain around his neck. Next door in a leather shop he bought a black, box-cut jacket and Italian shoes. At the end of the street he came to a clothes stall and walked away with dark-grey, Armani trousers that had shots of silver silk running through the material, a black silk shirt and two white cotton shirts. It was unlikely the trousers were really Armani and he very much doubted the shoes were Italian, but they looked similar to the clothes Zeki had worn when he and Yuri had followed him, so were good enough for what he had in mind.
Not wanting to re-join the main throng, he left the bazaar through a side exit and made way back to the lodgings in Yenikapi. In the room, he messed with his hair, making a fair job of shaping it the way Zeki had styled his. He shaved, but left enough stubble to mask his features. Mehmet was tall and slim like Zeki, and looked similar enough that anyone seeing him from a distance might believe it was him.
Mid-afternoon, he took a ferry to Eminonu and strolled aimlessly about the city, relaxing, trying to get a feel for current life. He’d been away for many years and since getting back, his thoughts had been too wrapped up in Yagmur to observe what was happening around him. One thing was certain: mopeds had become a part of everyday life, skittering about without anyone taking notice of them. Mehmet didn’t understand the rules of the road, but it seemed they mostly drove in the shade. Mind made up, before he did anything else, he had to buy a moped.
Easy – within an hour of purchase he was skilfully negotiating traffic in the busiest parts of town. He rode across the floating bridge into Galata and drove up and down every street and alley in the district. Almost nothing had changed and he began feeling like he’d never been away – and that he’d always ridden a moped.
Enough. He turned back south, crossed the bridge, picked up the Kennedy coast road on the west side and rode towards the port of Yenikapi.
Yuri had taught him not to group activities in one area, so renting a property on the doorstep of where he currently lived wouldn’t be a good idea. He drove on past Yenikapi until coming to neighbouring Kumkapi. The moped screamed its way along the esplanade fronting the Marmara Sea and then Mehmet saw a row of workshops. He slowed the machine. At the end of the
block, one of the units was up for rent. A notice pinned to the wooden doors said interested parties should make initial contact with a Mister Barkev at an address at the other end of the units and up the stairs.
Skilful navigation was needed just to get up the enclosed stairway. There were oily rags, broken glass and empty cans set like traps every couple of steps. At the top, he knocked and waited – and waited – he knocked again.
Someone shouted, “I’m not buying anything and I’m busy.”
“The sign on the unit along the block told me to come to this address to make enquiries about rental,” Mehmet replied.
“It’s only available on a quarterly basis.”
“Yes, that’s okay. I probably want it for longer.”
The door swung open and a short, squat Armenian filled the gap, grinning like a chimpanzee. Armenians dominated this neighbourhood and an ambassador for the race he wasn’t. He wore baggy jeans and a black vest. His limbs spewed from the armholes and folded flesh rippled down to his wrists. His upper arms were covered with matted black hair and yet his hairline had withdrawn in a half-circle to the crown of his head.
He looked Mehmet up and down, and nodded. “Three months – and in advance,” he said.
“If it suits my requirements, that shouldn’t be a problem.”
His brow scrunched as he rubbed his hands. “You want to take the garage on long term, Mister … err?”
He stood close, too close. The acidic smell of spent engine oil and garlic invaded Mehmet’s nostrils. He stepped back.
“Zeki, just call me Zeki.”
“And I am Mister Barkev,” he answered, bloating out his chest and holding his head high.
Mehmet felt a ball of laughter expand in his chest and had to look down in case the emotion echoed up onto his face. Taking a small-toothed comb from his jacket, he slicked it through his hair, as he had seen Zeki do.
“Mister Barkev.” Mehmet nodded, paused a beat. “Yes, three months is no problem, possibly more if it’s suitable. Let me look at it first.”
“Of course, I’ll take you down there now.” He went indoors and came out with a bunch of keys.
“Just a minute,” Mehmet said. “Take the lease with you and if the unit is suitable, I have money with me. We can settle the contract down there.”
Faster than should have been possible for such a fat man, he was gone and back on the steps with the paperwork in his hand. He said, “I’ll sign up a lease as it should be done, but I’ll give you a separate receipt for the money. No need for the taxman to take everything.” He smiled, but then his mind visibly stumbled. “Err, you realise if I was upfront with all this tax business, the cost of the rent would probably double.”
“Yes, of course,” Mehmet said, giving him a nod and a wink.
Barkev didn’t seem to care for that and brushed him aside, pushing past to lead the way down the steps. He went ahead and Mehmet noticed the hair on his upper arms continued across his shoulders, finally filling the crescent cut-out in the back of his vest.
At the unit, Barkev opened the double wooden doors and they went in. The place was tatty and smelled a bit like Barkev, but it was long and narrow, easily big enough for two or three cars. It had a full-sized pit at the back end and a wooden workbench against the wall next to it. The bench had three and a half legs, the shortest of which was levelled up with a brick. A rope block hung over the centre of the pit.
“What about lighting?” Mehmet asked, noticing that if the doors were closed it would be as black as pitch in there – and the doors would have to be kept closed.
“Yes, up here, Zeki.”
He went back to the entrance and flipped a switch. Bare wires fed into a yellowing and cracked Bakelite dome. It visibly sparked before two oil-covered fluorescent lights on the timber ceiling flickered on. It was up to Barkev if he wanted to kill himself using the switch, but Mehmet would use a stick to turn the lighting on and off.
“All right, yes, I think we can do business,” he said, offering to shake on the deal. Barkev reached out a greasy mitt and Mehmet’s hand was swallowed in a wad of flesh and hair.
“It’s none of my business, of course,” he said, “but you don’t look like a mechanic. What will you use it for?”
“Like you say, it’s none of your business… However, the workshop will be used to do a little woodwork, my way of escaping the city. I must say before we go any further, I wouldn’t be pleased at being interrupted in any way. I want to feel this is my own little world. If I can’t have my privacy, I’ll have to look elsewhere.”
“No, no, that won’t be necessary, Zeki. I think you’ll be the perfect tenant and believe me, I’ll be the perfect landlord. Even if you were to commit a string of noisy murders here, no one would bother you. I promise you that.”
Mehmet couldn’t help but grin at the remark.
When Barkev left, he looked around and found a coiled, oily rope under the workbench. He could use that and he would also need a lump hammer, three steel eyelets and a two-metre plank of wood.
*
Mehmet secured the moped to a steel fence on Sirkeci quayside before walking to the police station and obscuring himself in a doorway on the opposite side of the street. The period he’d spent in the cells came to mind and ran its way through to the Synopi transfer when he teamed up with Oz. Because of Oz he’d become friends with Selim, and because of that he… Wait a minute. Selim. Oz had told Mehmet that Selim was once leader of the Little Dogs. Selim would have known who the strange man under the bridge with Zeki had been. If only he’d spoken to him about it before the escape he’d know the identity of the boss – but then again, he’d still be doing what he was doing now. All the same, Yuri would be disappointed; if Mehmet’s thinking had been sharper he wouldn’t be chasing shadows.
He sighed, resigned. No point in worrying about what ifs; he couldn’t do anything about it. He returned focus to the police station. Soon boredom visited, he left the doorway, walked about, crossed the street, came back again, back and forwards until he became bored with that too.
Then a man in a uniform strutted from the station. Mehmet was close enough that he could have reached out and touched him. Brazenly, he stared at the officer. It was Ahmet. His dark-blue uniform was immaculate, unlike the sagging, aging body inside, which appeared more than a little tired. Suddenly, the captain noticed the attention he was receiving and pulled his shoulders back, looking down his nose at his surroundings in pose.
Not wanting to take too much advantage of not being recognised, Mehmet returned to his doorway and studied his prey from afar. Not a pretty sight: slatted eyes buried in puckered flesh and blue lips drawn tight under a wide purple nose. The sides of his mouth hung down, his cheeks were bloated and pockmarks had gouged craters in a face full of thread veins. He was a heavily built man and had he been younger, would be a handful.
A grey Ford Mk-III Zephyr pulled up in front of the building: an unmarked car.
“Captain Ahmet,” the driver shouted.
A semi-startled Ahmet turned towards the caller and then climbed into the back. The driver pulled away and Mehmet was unable to follow; he’d left his moped at the quayside. Never mind – another day tomorrow.
After releasing the moped from the fence at the quay, he watched a boat moor up to the jetty and thought back to when Yuri had taken Nina to the police station to see Captain Iskander. He wondered what she would be doing now, if she was alive. If she was, he could only hope Yuri had found her somewhere safe to hide, away from her Turkish whoremasters.
*
With the grease washed out, the warm wind tousled Mehmet’s hair, the sun baked his face and the light of a clear blue sky lifted his spirit. He had ditched the Zeki disguise and was wearing one of his white, cotton shirts. The shirt’s tails hung out over a pair of worn Levis and scuffed white sneakers protruded from the bottom of them. Hopefully, the floppy hair and casual dress would be enough to make him look like every other young moped rider scooting about
everywhere.
He’d spent a few days trailing along after Ahmet’s chauffeur. It had been unlikely the driver would be watching out for a tail, but Mehmet melted into the busy traffic and kept a reasonable distance, just in case. On this day, the driver pulled in at a police station in northern Sirkeci. Mehmet stopped nearby and observed.
The station was the closest authority to where he’d left Yagmur’s body and Mehmet wondered if Ahmet was handling the case. The bullet Mehmet had fired into the base of Yagmur’s skull was a nine-millimetre and he assumed it came from the same weapon as was used to assassinate General Volkan. Ahmet was certainly in a position to link the killings because of that, but he knew Zeki wasn’t the guilty party so wouldn’t follow that trail. Ahmet’s death, on the other hand, would probably see Captain Iskander back on the case and he would tie them together without doubt.
It was Friday and Mehmet had observed that on Fridays Ahmet tended to drive alone, going to several of the nightclubs around Eminonu and spending at least half an hour in each. Mehmet’s first thought was that Ahmet was screwing the hostesses, but that many women at his age? Unlikely. Then it clicked. He was making collections, boosting his income.
Ahmet stopped at one of the clubs and stepped out of the car. For the moment Mehmet had seen enough. If Ahmet was indeed on the Yagmur case, he wasn’t allowing it to alter his habits. He left him to it and returned to the workshop to double-check everything was ready. And to make sure Barkev hadn’t been nosing around. He’d become a bit of a nuisance of late.
Chapter 34
A week went by with Mehmet only making occasional checks on Ahmet to make sure he stuck to his routine. Now was Friday: the day the captain did his rounds solo; the day Mehmet would make his move against him. He greased his hair back, donned the leather jacket, silk shirt and Armani trousers, to bring the Zeki character back to life. If things went to plan it would be him getting the blame for what was about to happen.