Death by Design (12 page)

İkmen opened his eyes wide and said, ‘Does he?’

‘Yes, he has good Turkish employer,’ Yigit said. ‘Mr Ertegrul, if I can get you in, maybe to meet this man’s employer . . .’

‘I would be interested,’ İkmen said.

‘Of course, and if I help you, there would naturally be a consideration . . .’

Money. Of course.

‘Yigit, if you’re telling him you can get him a job, you can stop that right now!’ Harrison said. ‘He can’t speak English! Don’t tell him you’ll get him something when you can’t! Don’t ask him for money to do it either. I know you, you old twister!’

‘Mr Harrison, I don’t never ask people for money!’ Yigit said. ‘And why he don’t make the security guard anyway? He don’t need English.’

‘Yes, he does!’ the Englishman said. ‘How’s he going to—’

‘Many peoples work in factories for Mr Ülker don’t have no English,’ Mr Yigit said. ‘Thousand, thousand languages there.’

‘Yeah, but the security guards are a bit different,’ Harrison said. ‘What if the old bill come along in the night and try to speak to him? They’re gonna suss what he is straight away and then we’re back to square one again.’

‘This man, Mr Ertegrul, is a decent man,’ Mr Yigit said. ‘He don’t smoke drugs. Not like Sılay brothers.’

‘I’m not saying he isn’t decent! What I am saying is that he’s got no English!’

‘What’s he saying?’ İkmen asked. ‘What’s going on, Mr Yigit?’ He looked genuinely bemused.

‘Nothing. Nothing,’ Yigit soothed. He clearly wanted to make a few pounds out of him if he could. ‘There now, Mr Ertegrul, don’t you worry. This Englishman is nothing, just a stupid pig. You know he works for Turkish people five years, still he speaks not a word of our language. I know his boss, he is a personal friend of mine. Don’t worry, I will get you an introduction.’

The old man’s name was Abdurrahman Iqbal and he was a Pakistani citizen. His passport stated that he had been born in 1920 which meant that he was eighty-seven years old.

‘I was born in India, Calcutta,’ he told Süleyman. ‘Before partition, you see. There was no Pakistan before nineteen forty-seven.’

‘I know, Mr Iqbal,’ Süleyman said. ‘Now, you told Dr Sarkissian here and myself that you knew the boy Tariq, the boy who blew himself up in Tarlabaşı.’

Unusually, Arto Sarkissian had come into the interview room with Süleyman and İzzet Melik. He’d come because the Pakistani was very old, very thin and could possibly need medical attention. He would also at some point need to explain to him about Tariq’s illness and what that might mean for him.

The old man shrugged. ‘I knew that the police would come sometime,’ he said sadly. ‘I told the other Afghans as soon as Tariq did what he did. I said, “You must go now or the police will catch you!”’

‘You live in that house with illegal Afghan—’

‘I used to,’ Iqbal said. ‘But you have me here now and the Afghans when they know you have been there, they will disappear.’

‘Do you know their names, these Afghans?’ İzzet Melik asked.

Iqbal shook his head. ‘No. I knew only Tariq,’ he said. ‘The others are all grown men. They didn’t want an old man with them. But Tariq? He was so young and alone and sick too – always coughing. The others ignored him but to me he was a poor confused boy. I tried to help him. I failed.’

‘Mr Iqbal,’ Süleyman said, ‘we need to know everything you know about Tariq. It is very important. You also need to consider when you answer that you are an illegal immigrant into this country. What you tell us may make those in immigration look more favourably upon you.’

The old man smiled. ‘You mean, sir, your immigration people might help me to stay?’ He shook his head. ‘With great respect, I do not want to stay here. I am in transit only. My hope was to move on soon.’

‘Into the European Union?’

‘To Great Britain,’ he said. ‘That was where Tariq was going too, you know.’

‘All right, before we speak of your plans, let’s get back to Tariq,’ Süleyman said. ‘What do you know about him?’

Iqbal told them that Tariq, a Sunni Muslim, was an Afghan from a village to the north of Kabul. All of his family with the exception of one older brother had been killed in the various battles that had taken place between the Afghan army and the Taliban. Left with a hatred for both the American-backed Afghan army and the Taliban, Tariq had left Kabul and was making his way to London to be with his brother. Already very sick, his condition had deteriorated by the time he got to İstanbul. He had also run out of money. Abdurrahman Iqbal had found the boy begging on İstiklal Street. At first he had thought that he was a fellow Pakistani, but when he found out that he was an Afghan he took him into the house opposite the Taksim Hospital. It was, after all, a haunt for others of his kind even if they wanted little to do with him. In the limited way that he could, he nursed Tariq and got him on his feet again. The boy had been grateful. When he’d heard about the possibility of getting some work at an illegal factory in Tarlabaşı, he had jumped at the chance. He needed money to go on further and he also wanted to get some cash for Iqbal.

‘I was a little short of money myself by then,’ the old man said. ‘And so the boy went to work. He spoke some Turkish on account of his mother having been a Turkoman.’

And for a while he got on with his job very well. His father had been a tailor and had taught him to sew when he was little. Stitching leather handbags wasn’t so much different. But as the weeks passed, Iqbal began to see a change in his young friend. Not only did his cough get worse again but he began to come out with things that the old Pakistani wasn’t sure were true.

‘At first he was very happy because he said his new bosses were going to arrange transport to England for him. I told him to be careful,’ Iqbal said, ‘because you know, gentlemen, what some of these people traffickers can be like. People who make false goods are criminals and so if they also traffic people, those people sometimes end up as their slaves in their new country. Prostitution and things like that.’

But as time went on it became apparent that something even more sinister was happening to Tariq at his place of work. Someone at the factory, Tariq never said who, began to talk to him about fundamentalism. He told Iqbal that the way it was presented sounded just like the Taliban and at first he was appalled. But as time went on he began to feel more and more guilty about leaving his country in the hands of ‘infidels’.

‘I told him they were poisoning his mind,’ the old man said. ‘But Tariq said that they had promised not only to take him to London but to give a considerable amount of money to his brother there.’

‘What did they want from Tariq in return?’ Süleyman asked.

The old man lowered his eyes. ‘Tariq knew that he was very sick. His only desire was to see his brother before he died.’ He looked up sharply and said, ‘They wanted him to explode a bomb somewhere in London.’

‘A suicide attack?’

‘Yes.’

Süleyman leaned across the table and looked deeply into the old man’s eyes. ‘Where?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. London. I have never been there.’

Süleyman turned to İzzet Melik and spoke in Turkish. ‘İzzet, the two foremen we arrested at the Tarlabaşı factory—’

‘Awaiting trial, sir.’

‘Contact the prison and tell the authorities we need to speak to them,’ Süleyman said.

‘Now?’

‘Right now,’ his superior said. As İzzet Melik rose to his feet, he added, ‘And tell Commissioner Ardıç that we may well have some more information the police in London will find interesting.’

‘Yes, sir.’ İzzet left.

‘Carry on, Mr Iqbal.’

‘I told Tariq to leave that place and somehow I would get us both to London,’ he said. ‘But he was in two minds. On the one hand he knew I was right. He was a good Muslim who knew that violence and Islam are two ideas that just cannot be connected. A good Muslim is a peaceful and kind person, caring of everyone and prejudiced in no way against anyone. But growing up in that terrible country . . .’ He shook his head. ‘The people in that factory told him that if he blew himself up, his soul would go straight to Paradise. They gave him guns and grenades to make him feel powerful. Young men like such things. He brought them home! Allah, but I nearly took them from him and threw them into the Bosphorus. I wish now that I had. Two weeks before he killed himself he talked of opening his veins to get himself out of pursuing their plan. I told him not to. Maybe I was wrong in that.’ He looked over at Dr Sarkissian. ‘I know you know what was wrong with Tariq, sir.’

‘Tariq was in the final stages of tuberculosis,’ the doctor said. ‘That’s why we need to find everyone he came into contact with. I will need to X-ray your chest and do blood and skin tests. Tuberculosis is a notifiable disease. We have to protect the public.’

The old man smiled. ‘I have no problem with your tests, doctor,’ he said. ‘If I could find the Afghans for you I would but . . .’ He shrugged. ‘You know, in my life I have known various people who make fake goods for their living. But I have never ever come across any who do that and are also involved in jihad. It’s a very strange combination, don’t you think?’

The knock on the door burst into İkmen’s dream as someone hammering on the entrance to his apartment back in İstanbul. In his dream it was his son Bekir, back from the dead, shot and bleeding. In reality it was Mr Yigit.

‘Mr Ertegrul,’ he said. ‘You must get up!’

‘Get up?’

İkmen looked at the small travel clock he kept beside his bed and saw that it was 2 a.m.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Mr Ertegrul,’ Yigit said excitedly, ‘I have secured you a job interview! That stupid Mr Harrison was wrong and I was right. Of course Mr Ülker would want to see you for a job at his factory! He needs security guards! You are a security guard. Get your clothes on and come now.’

İkmen sat up and blinked at the harsh light that Yigit had let in from the corridor. ‘Now?’

‘Of course now!’ Yigit replied. ‘You must work at night. It is night now! Come along, Mr Ülker is waiting!’

Ten minutes later İkmen found himself inside an old Ford Escort with Yigit leaning heavily across the steering wheel and squinting so that he could see the road ahead. It was neither raining nor snowing and so İkmen could only conclude that Yigit’s eyesight was not all that it could be. It didn’t take them long to get to some scrubby wasteland that was just beyond a railway station called Hackney Wick. The area, which was criss-crossed by dirt tracks and pot-holed roads, was semi-derelict. There were buildings everywhere but most of them were little more than skeletons and those that were not were generally leaning at crazy and unsafe angles. This was not the shining landscape of Canary Wharf or the City. No, this was like the old London of the seventies that he had known when he was young. Dark and dirty, reeking of poverty and despair. And not just figuratively either. İkmen wrinkled up his nose and said, ‘What on earth is that smell?’

‘Oh, many apologies,’ Yigit said. ‘That, Mr Ertegrul, is a farm. A pig farm, I am afraid. But it is a way from here, over the other side. I promise you faithfully you will never so much as have to look at the filthy animals. No.’

‘Right. OK.’ It was faintly touching the way that Mr Yigit was so concerned for İkmen and any possible contact between himself and forbidden pigs. Looking out for his soul. İkmen smiled. But then his landlord changed tack and was much more upbeat.

‘This area is where we will have the Olympics in a few years’ time,’ Yigit said as he pulled up beside a very long, very scruffy-looking wooden building. ‘An Olympic village! I think it will be most spectacular.’

Between his own tiredness and the down-at-heel hopelessness of wherever they were, İkmen couldn’t imagine how anyone could clear the place up, much less build an Olympic village on the site. Outside the wooden building İkmen could see two men. One of them was clearly the Englishman he had seen with Yigit earlier, Harrison. The other was shorter and darker, seemingly rather better dressed, and İkmen recognised him immediately. It was Ahmet Ülker. Before either of them got out of the car, Yigit leaned across to İkmen and said, ‘Now look, brother, that is Mr Ülker there. If he does give you the job you will owe me two hundred and fifty pounds. That’s one hundred and fifty Turkish lire. Job-finder’s fee. But Mr Ülker is a good employer. You will make good money. And don’t worry, I won’t take my fee until you have been paid.’ He smiled.

They got out of the car and walked over to the two men. İkmen could see light coming through the various cracks in the wooden boards the building was made of. There was noise, too, the sound of many industrial sewing machines. The sound that had greeted him just before he had broken into the illegal factory in Tarlabaşı.

‘Mr Ertegrul?’ That spiky haircut Ahmet Ülker had didn’t look any better now than it had done in the lobby of the Rize.

‘Yes.’

Ülker didn’t smile which was probably just as well. Doughy faces like Ülker’s did not, İkmen had always felt, suit levity very well.

Ülker pointed at the building behind him. ‘This is one of my businesses,’ he said in English. ‘The other one is behind it.’

‘Eh?’

İkmen heard the sound of a deep sigh, which came from Mr Harrison. ‘Ahmet, I told you he doesn’t speak any English!’ he said angrily. ‘God Almighty, this is such a waste of fucking time!’

‘Oh, but Mr Ülker, my friend Mr Ertegrul is very willing to work and . . .’ Mr Yigit looked at İkmen and said in Turkish, ‘You will learn English, won’t you, Mr Ertegrul?’

‘As soon as I am able,’ İkmen said. ‘Yes.’

Ahmet Ülker frowned. ‘This job doesn’t just involve guarding this place,’ he said in Turkish now. ‘You have to take deliveries and you have to make sure that the workers inside do their shifts and don’t call attention to themselves. In other words, you have to keep them all inside.’