Petrified (8 page)

Rostov had just disappeared into a booth specialising in art nouveau jewellery when Masha appeared at Suleyman’s elbow.

‘If you meet me tonight, I’ll give you the information you need,’ she said.

She looked quite small and ordinary in daylight and, in this very public place devoid of dark and squalid corners, he felt nothing for her. Perhaps it was just simply the glamour of the forbidden that attracted him. Maybe like some of his more debauched ancestors he possessed an overwhelming curiosity about how the ‘lower orders’ conducted themselves during sex. Perhaps that was why, in the past, he had felt the need, briefly, to take a mistress.

‘You know that Rostov is here, don’t you?’ he said as he looked quickly at the booth into which the Russian had disappeared.

‘Yes. He’s buying jewellery.’

‘For whom?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. To sell. Maybe for his men. He gave Vladimir a gold and diamond ring. He’s very generous to his men – sometimes.’

‘But not his women?’

Masha shrugged, glanced at the booth and then said, ‘So? Tonight?’

Suleyman took his cigarettes out of his pocket and lit up. ‘Only if the information is good.’

‘It is!’

Her face, pleading, looked desperate. Someone had obviously promised her a lot of money to set him up like this.

‘Where and when?’

‘Tonight, after eleven o’clock. I work at a pavyon on Camekan Sokak. All Russian konsomatris,’ she smiled. ‘Turkish punters, you see, they like that.’

Unbeknown to Masha, Suleyman knew the area around Camekan Sokak intimately. After his separation from his first wife, Zuleika, he’d spent several years renting a room in the district known as Karaköy from his old colleague Balthazar Cohen. Pavyons, like the one Masha worked in, and gazinos, places dedicated to the twin vices of drinking and leering, were what the district was famous for – that and the rather more honest brothels or genelev. Men went to gazinos and pavyons in order, they hoped, to have sex, but they were required to pay a lot of money for drinks offered to them by the konsomatris or ‘hostesses’ first. Russian bosses, like Rostov, were known to be very active in the pavyon business. In Suleyman’s opinion these places were more insidious and corrupt than regular brothels.

‘How will I find this place?’

He knew better than to ask the name of the establishment – places like this didn’t have names.

‘It’s in the basement of a Turkish genelev.’ She wrinkled up her nose as she said the word ‘Turkish’. Like a lot of Russian girls she felt herself to be far superior to the often quite naïve Anatolian girls the state-run and legal Turkish brothels employed. ‘The doorman has long blond hair and there’s a string of red and green lights around the door. You can’t miss it.’

‘So what do I do?’

Masha smiled. ‘Leave that to me,’ she said lasciviously. ‘I’ll take care of you.’

‘I just want the information.’

‘Yes, and you’ll get it,’ she said. ‘We will get Rostov. Trust me.’

And then she walked away. Suleyman looked back towards the booth where Rostov was, presumably, still involved in buying, and then walked over to it. It was empty. Somewhere during the course of his conversation with Masha, Rostov had slipped away. All of this was so obviously a set-up and yet he had to see it through just in case something useful could be gleaned from it. That or sex with Masha . . .

Suleyman shuddered. No. No, that couldn’t and wouldn’t happen. He’d have to share this with either İkmen or Metin İskender – he’d have to get support, another pair of eyes to watch what he and those around him at the pavyon did. Now, suddenly, set-up or no set-up, here was a chance possibly to call Rostov’s bluff. Using himself as bait there was just a chance that he could get close enough to the operation to work out what, over and above Masha’s ‘stories’, was really going on. What did Rostov want of him or want him to do? The only problem was that his boss, Commissioner Ardiç, was unlikely to sanction such a dangerous move. Suleyman was already in far further than the commissioner knew about or would approve. Using informants like Masha was notoriously risky, which was why İkmen and İskender and only they could know. The three of them had, after all, committed themselves to making sure that no one ever became powerful enough to take over where Zhivkov had finished. But Rostov was getting there. He had to be stopped.

In the meantime, however, if he was going to go to a pavyon and look like a proper punter he’d have to go to a cash dispenser and get some money. Masha, whatever her motivation might be, would want him to pay for his drinks. And if a very distressed American who’d recently been stung in this way was to be believed, it could cost him several hundred dollars.

In spite of his very long and quite grey beard, the monk wasn’t by any means an elderly man. With his unlined and very blue eyes, he was probably, İkmen thought, fifty at the most.

‘You’re sure you saw this vehicle on Friday night,’ İkmen said.

‘Oh, yes,’ the monk replied, ‘definitely. It’s stuck in my mind because I’ve never seen these gates open before.’ He looked up at the tall and ancient metal gates he and İkmen were standing in front of. ‘Some of these old Jewish places have such lovely gardens,’ the monk continued, ‘and what with this one being the residence of Melih Akdeniz, I looked in.’

‘Which was when you saw the blue van.’

‘Yes. The engine was running, quite smoky as if it wasn’t very well maintained. The smoke meant that I couldn’t really see anything of the garden and so I just walked on.’

İkmen offered the monk a cigarette, which he took with a smile.

‘So what time was this, Brother Constantine?’

The monk looked up into the cloudless blue sky and pursed his lips. ‘It had to have been nearly midnight,’ he said. ‘I’d been visiting my sister – she lives down near the Daphnis Hotel. She made me some dinner and then we talked; she’s just got divorced and is very unhappy. After that I left.’

‘You work at the High School?’ İkmen said as he tipped his head towards the large red-brick building at the top of the street.

‘Yes,’ Brother Constantine answered. ‘Over twenty years now.’

‘So are you acquainted with Mr Akdeniz in any capacity?’

‘No,’ Brother Constantine frowned, ‘Mr Akdeniz is something of a recluse and has been for many years, I believe. The children are nice, polite little ones.’ He shrugged. ‘But then to be honest with you, Inspector, I would never have sought Mr Akdeniz out. I know he’s our most famous and controversial artist, but his stuff isn’t for me. I like to look at a picture and know what I’m seeing.’

İkmen laughed. ‘You and I concur there, sir,’ he said. ‘I’m sure Mr Akdeniz is very clever, but . . .’

‘Indeed.’

Their conversation was briefly interrupted by the sight of Melih Akdeniz dragging what looked like a bolt of cloth out of his kitchen and into the garden. It was obviously giving him some considerable trouble because he puffed and gasped as he moved.

When he saw the policeman and the monk framed in the open gateway to his property, the artist put the cloth down and stood up straight, hands on hips.

‘What does he want?’ he called across to İkmen, pointing rudely at the monk.

‘I’ll tell you in a minute, sir,’ İkmen replied.

‘I don’t like Christians,’ Melih said. ‘Fucking torturers!’

İkmen turned to face the artist full on. ‘I told you I’d speak to you in a minute – sir,’ he said acidly. ‘At the moment I’m talking to this gentleman, who has never, as far as I’m aware, tortured anyone.’ He turned back to Brother Constantine and smiled. ‘I apologise for him,’ he said. ‘Now would you be willing to make a written statement about what you saw last Friday?’

‘Yes, naturally,’ the monk said and then, smiling, he continued, ‘You know it is said that Mr Akdeniz’s family were originally Jews. They came here from Spain and Portugal because they suffered the most appalling persecution at the hands of Christians in those countries.’

‘Yes,’ İkmen said, still with one eye on Melih Akdeniz, ‘but that was all a very long time ago. People should move on. These old enmities do nobody any good. We’re all guilty of it from time to time, but we shouldn’t do it.’ And then moving forward a little to see Akdeniz more easily he said, ‘What is he doing?’

The monk narrowed his eyes. ‘I don’t know.’

They both watched as the artist, sweating heavily in the intense midday heat, strung what appeared to be a huge canvas across the entire width of the garden.

Ayşe Farsakoǧlu took the ferry back to the city from Sarıyer. It fitted the sort of day she’d had: slow and fruitless.

The local constabulary had been friendly and welcoming, and had quizzed her at some length about the ‘excitement’ she must experience working in the city. But with regard to information on the missing Akdeniz children they hadn’t been any help. As usual the district was quiet and ordered, and everyone obeyed the law from behind their very tasteful front doors.

‘This is a fishing village,’ one of the younger constables, called Said, had remarked. ‘People concentrate only on the catch. İnşallah it will always be so.’

‘We also have the rich folks,’ an older colleague put in, adding darkly, ‘some of whom are foreigners these days.’

Ayşe had asked what sort of foreigners the district tended to attract.

‘Oh, those with a lot of money,’ the older man, Rifat, had said, ‘mostly from up there.’ He tilted his head northwards, which Ayşe interpreted as from somewhere in the old Soviet Union.

‘But they don’t cause any trouble?’ Ayşe had said.

‘Not as yet,’ Rifat had replied, ‘and it’s not up to me to worry myself about where they might have got their money from. You need a lot to buy one of the old yalıs these days, but then that’s their affair. Provided they don’t start having their gang wars here or parading their Natashas in our streets . . .’

It was ridiculous to think that the wealthier mobsters wouldn’t reach a place like Sarıyer. As soon as they made enough cash they left places such as Beyazıt and Beyoǧlu in favour of one or other of the villages. And although they still conducted their business in the city, with their swarms of prostitutes – the Natashas – and their various drug and human traffic cartels, they didn’t seem keen to sully their own hearths. Hence the police in Sarıyer, Yeniköy and other smart Bosphorus villages had little trouble with them. Ayşe had, however, taken a list of these people’s names from the local cops to show to İkmen. It was probably a waste of time like the rest of her trip. There was no reason to think, as yet, that the children had been taken by mobsters. They always demanded money, and so far no one had contacted the artist, much less asked him for money. But it had been a very pleasant day in spite of her lack of success. Wandering around very attractive fish restaurants asking about whether Melih Akdeniz was known there had been hot but enjoyable work. Everyone she asked knew of him, but no one knew him personally. Not that Akdeniz had ever said he and his family ate in Sarıyer often. All he’d actually said was that his children liked fish, and that they had planned to go out to Sarıyer on that particular occasion.

‘Hello, Ayşe.’

She looked up into a pair of large, dark eyes.

‘Hulya. What are you doing here?’

Hulya İkmen, seventeen and sweetly pretty in her thin summer dress, sat down beside her.

‘We’ve just been to visit Berekiah’s aunt at Rumeli Kavaǧi,’ she said as she brushed a great swathe of black hair out of her eyes.

Ayşe had decided to sit outside in order to smoke. What Hulya was doing out in the warm but strong wind she couldn’t imagine. One could just as easily admire the view from inside the ferry, far away from the wind and occasional splashes of spray.

‘Berekiah’s just coming. He wants a cigarette,’ the girl said in reply to Ayşe’s inner musings.

‘Oh.’

Berekiah Cohen was a nice young man. The son of Ayşe’s old colleague Balthazar Cohen, he worked for one of the better jewellers in the Grand Bazaar. As he walked somewhat unsteadily towards the two women, Ayşe noticed how his gold Star of David medallion smacked against his face in the wind. She wondered how that went down with Hulya’s mother, whom she knew to be a very devout Muslim.

‘So you’re not with my dad today,’ Hulya said as she watched Berekiah sit down and then took one of his hands in hers.

‘No,’ Ayşe replied, ‘I had business in Sarıyer.’

‘Oh.’ Hulya, like the good policeman’s daughter she was, didn’t push for any further details.

Ayşe looked across at Berekiah and smiled. ‘How’s your father, Berekiah?’

The young man smiled sadly. ‘Oh, as well as we can expect,’ he said. ‘He’s going to try false limbs soon. He’s never wanted to before, but he’s so restless.’

Balthazar Cohen had lost both of his legs from just below the knee in the hideous earthquake of 1999. Unable to work either in or out of the police force since, he had existed on painkillers and a seemingly endless stream of gossip supplied to him by his friends and family. It was said that he strongly disapproved of his son’s relationship with Hulya and had even fallen out with İkmen, whose philosophy stated that if people loved each other they should be allowed to be together, because of it. Perhaps he now wanted legs so that he could, literally, stand up to the Inspector.

‘I do hope that he gets on well with them,’ Ayşe said.

‘Thank you.’

Berekiah lit his cigarette and then leaned back against the ferry cabin to admire the view. They were passing Yeniköy now, with its pretty waterfront characterised by pastel-coloured nineteenth-century villas. The young man breathed in deeply and then exhaled on a sigh.

‘I love it up here,’ he said as he closed his eyes with pleasure. ‘It’s so clean.’

‘Maybe we’ll live here one day,’ Hulya said. ‘It certainly would be nice.’

‘Yes.’

Ayşe turned away to light a cigarette of her own. Much as she liked them both, she didn’t want to get involved in their future-planning conversations. Such things were private and, besides, with these two, they were contentious also. The Jewish boy and the Muslim girl . . . OK, it happened but not usually to old Balat families like the Cohens. They were fiercely proud of their heritage, and even though she knew that Fatma İkmen and Cohen’s wife, Estelle, were firm friends she also knew that the last thing they would want was to be related.