River of The Dead (16 page)

‘Dad!’

İkmen was just outside police headquarters when he was stopped by the sound of Çiçek’s voice. He turned and smiled. Breathless from running to catch him up, Çiçek tottered into her father’s arms and kissed him on the cheek.

‘I came home to see you all yesterday, but only Kemal was in,’ she said as she put a hand up to her heaving chest.

‘He didn’t say anything about your visit,’ İkmen said as he returned her kiss and took one of her arms in his.

Çiçek raised her eyes to the sky in exasperation. ‘Kemal!’

‘So, my soul, what was your visit about?’ İkmen asked. ‘Was it just a social call or did you want to talk about something in particular?’ He suspected from the rather serious look on her face that it was the latter.

Çiçek had never been a person to mince her words. ‘Dad, I’m worried about Mum,’ she said. ‘More specifically, I’m worried about Mum and Bekir.’

‘Ah.’ İkmen put his free hand in his pocket and retrieved his cigarettes.

‘I know that she is going to be more protective about Bekir than she would be normally for a while,’ Çiçek continued. ‘But when Bülent was at home the other day he saw Mum cancel a dental appointment she made ages ago in order to stay in with Bekir. What’s more, Bülent said that although Bekir did make various noises to Mum about how she should go to the dentist, once she’d cancelled he looked smug and pleased with himself.’ She drew still closer to her father and took one of the cigarettes that he offered her. ‘Dad, Bülent can barely remember Bekir but I do and, glad as I am to see him again, he was trouble.’

İkmen lit up their cigarettes and sighed. ‘He says he’s changed, that he’s off drugs . . .’

‘And Kemal is coming under his spell. Thinks that Bekir is “cool”!’ Çiçek drew shakily on her cigarette and then said, ‘Dad, I know it’s suspicious and cynical but I can’t and don’t trust Bekir. What he put us all through, years ago, but with such obvious delight . . .’

‘Çiçek.’ İkmen put a hand on her shoulder. ‘My darling, I must be honest and say that I don’t trust him either. I can’t tell you why; I have no evidence that he is or has been doing anything wrong. He says that he will leave us soon. Apparently he has a job down on the south coast for the summer.’

‘Do you know what it is?’

‘No.’ He rubbed his face wearily with his hands. ‘I want him to go. I don’t know why, he’s not being unpleasant and he is my son, but . . . He says he’s leaving soon and I want your mother to have some good times with him first. She doesn’t know about this yet and you’re not to tell her. I mean, yes she is behaving in a silly fashion right now, but how can I tell her that? Her son has returned after one and a half decades doing who knows what—’

‘He says he fought gypsies, travelled and all sorts,’ Çiçek cut in.

‘Yes, and I must try to find the time to go to Balat and talk to my gypsy connection,’ İkmen said. ‘I’m not saying that I don’t believe any of Bekir’s stories, but . . . You know, Çiçek, I think that your mother does know on some level what is going on with regard to Bekir and her behaviour towards him. She’s not a fool.’

‘No, I know.’

İkmen puffed hard on his cigarette and said, ‘I will go and see my gypsy. She knows everyone.’

‘Sir!’

It was, İkmen recognised immediately, Ayşe Farsakoğlu’s voice. Turning towards his place of work he saw her standing in the doorway holding a mobile telephone to her ear.

‘Ayşe?’

‘Sir, we have to go out to Zeyrek now! İsak Mardin’s landlord has found something that could be significant in his garden!’

İkmen smiled at his daughter, kissed her again and took his leave of her. Çiçek, used to such oblique and unexpected partings, began to go about her business. As she left she said, ‘Oh, and Dad, there’s a smell in the apartment. Don’t know what it is. Kemal says it’s his spot cream, but . . .’

‘Yes, it is, apparently,’ İkmen said as he ran off towards the station. ‘Ghastly, I know, but . . .’

‘OK, Dad,’ Çiçek said. ‘I’ll leave it with you.’

But her father had gone.

Interesting though the history of the ancient city of Dara was, Süleyman felt that there had to be more constructive things he could be doing with regard to the recapture of Yusuf Kaya. All this detail about Byzantine garrisons and wars with the Persians was making him feel as if he were on the edge of the world. And when one of their young guides pointed towards some tiny white cube-like buildings in the distance and said, ‘Syria,’ it only served to increase his sense of dislocation. But there was nothing he could do. Inspector Taner was running this investigation and she’d taken off in her car to who knew where over an hour ago.

The young guides told the officers that they had been employed to take tourists round the site mainly because visitors had complained that they were being hassled for money by gangs of greedy kids.

‘They are mainly gypsies, of course,’ one of the lads said when they all sat down at the end of the tour at a tea garden on the edge of the town. The children in question probably weren’t exclusively gypsies, but Süleyman let it go.

The tea, which was served to them by an elderly man, was hot and strong and was very welcome in spite of the now rapidly increasing heat. Constable Selahattin said, ‘When the sun does come out at this time of year, it can be very hot.’ He smiled. ‘It can also still rain and even snow on occasion too. This place is unpredictable.’

They sat and talked of this and that with their young hosts for almost an hour and then, as quickly as she had gone, Edibe Taner reappeared. Once back inside the car, she didn’t speak to either of the men about where she had been until they had well and truly cleared Dara village. Even when she did speak she didn’t say from where or from whom she had gained her information.

‘There is an old house at the back of the necropolis,’ she said, ‘that belongs, I am told, to the Kaya family. Occasionally, generally after dark, a tall veiled woman is seen taking exercise outside in company with armed men.’ She pointed out of the car window, beyond the tumbling tombs of Dara’s former masters, towards a large sandy hillock at the back of the graveyard. ‘Behind all that. I think we should return tonight and—’

‘Inspector, forgive me,’ Süleyman said, ‘but now that we have this information, wouldn’t it be better to investigate now? Yesterday you felt that night-time was not the best time to be out here. I mean, I don’t know who your informant was, but surely that person could tell the woman and her guards that you have been told about this.’

She looked away from the road for a moment, her face proud and stern. ‘They won’t talk,’ she said with absolute certainty. ‘They wouldn’t dare.’

It was not a statement that invited any sort of response, and Süleyman kept his counsel. Had Taner been perhaps to see Lütfü Güneş, the Kurd who had come to see him? It wasn’t likely. In line with the man’s request, he hadn’t told Taner his name, and anyway, if Lütfü had wanted to talk to Taner he would have done so a long time before. No, she had seen some other person or persons and quizzed and probably threatened them with something or other too. She was, he was coming to see, a very powerful woman – daughter of a Master of Sharmeran or not.

‘I will arrange for a squad to surround the house tonight and then you and I will go in and talk to the inhabitants,’ Taner said to Süleyman after a pause. ‘It’s safer that way. That’s my decision.’

She clearly knew her territory and her people, so there was very little in that to argue with. Not that it didn’t leave Süleyman feeling uneasy. To surround the house at night seemed to him an unnecessarily aggressive act. Surely, to stop at the house and maybe for him to ask for directions in order to get the lie of the land would be a better plan? But then he didn’t know the area or the people. What he did know
of
it was, he had to admit, more tense, violent and generally unstable than anything he had ever come across in İstanbul. Apart from all the different ethnic groups and terrorist organisations active in the area, there was drug growing and trafficking and last, but certainly not least, the powerful clans that controlled life both up in the city and down on the plain.

‘Now we will go to Mardin Prison,’ Taner said as she accelerated the car past a herd of startled goats and made for the crossroads. ‘There is someone there I would like you to meet, Inspector Süleyman.’

‘Oh?’

From the back of the vehicle, Selahattin said, ‘Musa Saatçi.’

Taner said, ‘Indeed.’

Süleyman, frowning, said, ‘Is Musa Saatçi something to do with Kaya?’

‘Oh, no,’ Taner said breezily. ‘Not at all. Musa Saatçi is the father of a man who is a living saint.’

A living saint? Süleyman squashed down his suspicions and said, ‘So why is he in prison, this father of a saint? What is his crime?’

‘He is on remand and so has not yet been convicted of any crime,’ Taner said. ‘But just under eight weeks ago, an old friend of Musa Saatçi when visiting him discovered that the old man’s house was full of weapons: guns, grenades and rocket launchers. That old friend is one of our officers.’

‘So this Musa Saatçi is a terrorist?’

Edibe Taner sighed and shook her head sadly. ‘No,’ she said. ‘He is a very pious Christian man whose son has performed miracles in this area. The guns are not Musa’s. But he won’t tell us who they do belong to.’

‘And now Gabriel has gone missing,’ Selahattin said from the back of the car.

‘Gabriel?’

‘Gabriel Saatçi, Musa’s son,’ Taner said. ‘He is a monk at St Sobo’s. But shortly after his father was arrested, he disappeared. Everyone is looking for him. When we were at the Kaya house yesterday I spoke to a neighbour about him. We are all very worried. Even if one is a Muslim, Gabriel Saatçi is very special.’

‘Why is that?’ Süleyman asked.

Without a hint of scepticism in her voice, Edibe Taner said, ‘God via the Sharmeran gave Gabriel the power to withstand snake bite when he was a young child. Gabriel Saatçi was bitten by vipers and yet he lived unharmed. He is an immortal saint.’

Mr Lale was not a man to take a tongue-lashing from anyone. Not even a senior police officer.

‘I had to know whether it was him or not,’ he said to İkmen as he looked across, without emotion, at the plastic-bag-framed face of the dead body that was currently being examined by the police pathologist, Arto Sarkissian.

‘By “him” I take it you mean İsak Mardin your ex-tenant?’ İkmen said tightly. The bloody stupid man had tampered with a crime scene!

‘Who else would I mean?’ Mr Lale replied. ‘Of course İsak Mardin!’ He sighed. ‘It was a relief to find that it wasn’t him. I mean, I know he owes me rent, but—’

‘So having tampered with the body in order to satisfy your curiosity—’

‘My peace of mind!’ Mr Lale interrupted. ‘To put my mind at rest that the body in that bag wasn’t one of my tenants. With that great big arm sticking out at me, it could easily have been him. He built his body; it was his obsession. And if it had been him maybe one of my other tenants might have killed him. Imagine that! Imagine living with the knowledge that someone in your house had been killed by someone else in your house. Imagine—’

‘Mr Lale, hysterics will get us nowhere!’ İkmen snapped. ‘I’m quite rightly angry because you have contaminated a crime scene. You pulled that bag apart to reveal the face and in the process you have almost certainly destroyed at least some of the evidence this man’s assailant may have left behind. This man is clearly not İsak Mardin. I have to find out who he is and why he was buried in your garden.’

It was at this point that the pathologist rose to his feet and beckoned to Çetin İkmen. ‘Ah, Inspector . . .’

İkmen looked over at his friend and then, without another word to the landlord, he made his way over to him. ‘Arto.’

The Armenian looked on as the policeman lit up a cigarette and then said, ‘Cause of death, as far as I can deduce right now, is a deep stab wound to the neck.’

Thinking back to the other recent stabbings connected with the absconding of Yusuf Kaya, which by virtue of happening in İsak Mardin’s garden this one could also be, he said, ‘Glass?’

‘No, short-handled knife. Probably a flick knife. He’s about thirty. In good health as far as I can see.’

‘ID?’

‘He’s naked.’

İkmen groaned.

‘Forensic are on their way,’ Arto said. ‘They’ll have to turn over the property.’

‘Won’t please the landlord too much,’ İkmen said, nodding his head in the direction of Mr Lale.

The Armenian looked at the small, woollen-capped man with some disdain and said, ‘He contaminated the scene?’

‘Yes.’

Arto sighed.

‘Thought it might be his missing tenant, our missing nurse, İsak Mardin,’ İkmen said. ‘I must admit that I thought it might be him too. But it isn’t.’ He sighed. ‘I wonder who it is and whether he has or had anything to do with Mr Yusuf Kaya or not?’

‘I do not know,’ Arto said as he bent over the body once again.

İkmen, puffing heavily on his cigarette now, hunched his shoulders in misery.

But just before he hunkered down to go about his work again, Arto Sarkissian turned and said, ‘Oh, and he has a tattoo.’

‘A tattoo? Where?’

‘On his left bicep. It’s a flower, wound around with what look like tree branches. Quite well done. I have seen worse.’

‘Oh, well, that’s something,’ İkmen said. Tattoos were, he knew, often a good way of tracing an unknown person. And if no other evidence pointing to the identity of this man was found, that tattoo could prove very useful.

It was strange to see anyone, unrelated to that person, kiss a prisoner’s hand. But Edibe Taner did just that when Musa Saatçi was brought into the interview room. It was, Süleyman decided, a foul place. Not that any prison could be described as pleasant, but this place, maybe because of its remoteness, felt worse than any other jail he had visited before.