The Istanbul Puzzle (8 page)

He stopped, turned, peered at me. He must have been six foot six tall, at least. I stared back at him. At six foot one, I hadn’t felt small in a while.

‘What do you want?’ he said. His tone was still far from friendly, but at least he wasn’t shouting. His accent was thick. He reminded me of a Greek boy I’d known at MIT.

‘Are you Father Gregory?’ said Peter.

The monk made a sour face.

‘We want to see Father Gregory,’ I said, softly. ‘We need some advice about something we’ve found, something that will interest him.’

‘I’ll find out if he will see you,’ said the monk. He turned, walked towards the cliff face.

We waited by our Hummer. Mark took a large blue refrigerated box from the back of the vehicle, fed us with delicious wraps, chunky pieces of chicken, sticky rice, tomatoes and crisp cucumber, all wrapped in what looked like tortilla bread.

When the monk returned he walked straight up to me and said, ‘Come with me.’

Peter made as if to block me. ‘We’re coming too,’ he said.

The monk looked at each of us in turn, as if working out what would happen if we all followed him.

‘Don’t worry, I’m staying out here,’ said Mark. ‘You enjoy yourselves.’ He grinned at me, as if he knew where we were going.

‘You’re lucky,’ said the monk, as we walked past a grove of gnarled pine trees that grew near the cliff.

I could smell their sap.

‘Why’s that?’ I said.

‘Many have dreamt of coming to this place, only to die without their dream being fulfilled.’

Up ahead, the cliff of streaked limestone loomed. The rocky path we were on led straight towards it. The cliff shone with reflected sunlight, hurting my eyes.

‘Those who are impure of heart fear this place,’ said the monk loudly, as he walked ahead. ‘Some who come turn back here.’

I shielded my eyes. There was something unsettling about the place all right. I could imagine people turning back.

That was when I saw it. The arched, unembellished entrance to a cave, about eight foot high and the same wide, like a burrow for some monstrous bird. The monk was walking straight towards it. We followed.

Inside was a cave with a blackened roof, a flat dirt hearth at one side near the entrance, thin bones in crevices near it and a tunnel at the back. It looked as if shepherds had been using the place for a long time. There was a bad smell, as if something rotten had soaked into the packed earth floor. We headed for the tunnel. It was high enough to walk upright in.

Its walls were lit every hundred feet by electric lights on thin steel tripods. They beamed a sickly low-watt glow onto the streaked walls around us. It became cooler with each step we took. The walls were smooth as if they’d been gouged clean. As we went on the tunnel sloped gently upwards.

We were walking into the heart of the mountain. The tunnel was definitely not a recent construction. I could feel the weight of rock above us, and a sense of awe came over me, as I thought about how old the tunnel might be.

After walking for about five minutes the tunnel opened into a large cave, the likes of which I had never seen before. Its walls were a shiny blue-grey stone, carved here and there with huge winged creatures like something you’d see in a museum.

The roof was a dome shape with its centre high above. It was totally black. The cave walls curved inwards about three hundred feet away on either side. In the centre of the cave there was a collection of modern aluminium and black equipment laid out on the almost smooth stone floor. The place had a hostile air to it. Beside the equipment stood a gaunt old man in a dark brown monk’s habit. He was looking at us.

I walked towards him, leading the group. Our institute’s work in Hagia Sophia had to be of interest to him. He shook my hand, pointed at the wall above where we had just entered, as if eager to show the place off.

‘See that,’ he said, his finger shaking. ‘That is the goddess Ishtar, the cruel destroyer. She was an Assyrian deity. Her temples were adorned with the skins of her enemies and pyramids of skulls. They called her the goddess of love. Imagine!’ He made a loud dismissive noise.

‘Who built this place?’ I asked, looking around.

‘It was carved by water, young man, by nature. After that, who knows.’ He sniffed. That was when I realised there was a smell in the cave. It wasn’t strong, but now that I was in the centre I was more aware of it. It reminded me of the smell inside a freezer when something’s gone bad.

‘I’ve never heard of this place,’ I said. Peter and Isabel were standing beside us. They each shook hands with Father Gregory. He gave them a sickly smile, then drew his hand away fast as if distracted. He directed us to an old, but richly-patterned red carpet that had been laid out at the centre of the cave near all the instruments with their dials and read-out screens. None of them were turned on. I imagined Father Gregory rushing around, as we came down the corridor, turning everything off, in case we might be here to report on what he was doing.

‘Why did you come here?’ he asked me.

‘There’s something we want your advice on, Father. Have you got the photo, Peter?’

Peter took out the print of the mosaic from his bag and passed it to Father Gregory.

‘This is why we’re here,’ I said. ‘We have to find out where this photo was taken.’ Father Gregory examined the print, brought it close to his face.

‘The only reason I let you in here was because you told my assistant you were working in St Sophia.’ His tone was soft, but totally self-assured. ‘Is that true?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘In Hagia Sophia.’

‘Our great church is St Sophia, Holy Wisdom,’ he said, tartly. Then he blessed himself. ‘St Sophia is closer to the Divine than anything else here on earth. Its walls once showed the fields of paradise, and in its dome the heavens could be glimpsed.’ He closed his eyes, as if in prayer. Then he blinked them open.

‘Before we lost it.’ He was staring at me, as if I were the one to blame.

‘There are many secrets to St Sophia that have not been revealed. You know they want to turn it back into a mosque, and keep us out again. Now tell me, which university are you with?’

‘I’m with the Institute of Applied Research in Oxford. These people are helping me. They work for the British government.’ I waved towards Isabel and Peter. Isabel’s eyebrow arched, but she said nothing. Father Gregory looked at them, as if they were dung beetles.

His eyes narrowed. ‘You won the project in St Sophia last year, didn’t you?’ he said.

‘Yes, we’re in the middle of it now.’

‘Have you uncovered anything?’ There was a distinct eagerness in his tone.

‘We’re digitizing mosaics. I don’t expect anything revolutionary will come out of it.’

‘They’re afraid to look properly,’ he said. ‘All of them.’ He nodded his head, vigorously, as if he was agreeing with himself. He leaned forward. His brown habit draped down like a tent.

‘We are at a crossroads, you know, and they want to close the path.’

This guy was the original Mr Creepy.

‘Do you want to know what I’m working on, young man from an Oxford Institute?’ I nodded. Peter was scanning the walls. The other monk was pacing, head down, as if he was praying.

Father Gregory pointed at the wall behind him. The opposite wall to the one with the carving of Ishtar.

‘Look, these are demons, the
djinn
they call them. The things concealed by darkness. That is what the word means. These are the oldest images of demons ever found, I am sure of that. They are from well before the time of Mohammad and from before the time of Moses too and all the commandments, for us people of the book.’

The carvings on the wall behind Father Gregory were of winged creatures with horned helmets. It looked as if they had cloven feet. Great. This was exactly what the place needed, something to lighten it up.

‘The
djinn
bring war, destruction, disease, like a murmur passing from man to man.’ He paused. ‘And this is where they were worshipped, until Christians came and then Islam.’ He pointed above us. Someone had painted a thin cross above the
djinns
. Near it was a crescent moon. It had writing beside it, a jagged Arabic-type script.

Tell me, why did you need to see me so quickly? What is it that could not wait until I leave Iraq?’ said Father Gregory.

‘Sean’s colleague was murdered in Istanbul,’ said Isabel. ‘He was beheaded. We’d very much like to find out who did it.’ She paused. ‘If we can find out where this photo was taken it will help us’

Father Gregory inhaled sharply.

‘It is all starting then,’ he said.

‘What’s starting?’ I said.

‘The
djinn
will be released.’ He glared at me. He was being serious.

‘You reckon they’re for real?’ I said. I pointed upwards.

‘They take over minds. They twist people.’ He seemed genuinely worried now.

I looked around. He was right about this place. There was something unsettlingly weird about this cave, as if it was holding its breath.

‘Evil exists, young man. It eats at men’s hearts. Don’t ever deny it. And it comes from somewhere, as love does. Evil doesn’t die either. It renews itself with a fresh face.’

‘It’s amazing this place survived all these years,’ said Isabel. She said it wryly, as if she thought Father Gregory had gone mad down here.

‘The locals say this cave is cursed,’ said Father Gregory. ‘That is why they don’t come here.’ His voice had a shaky quality to it now. ‘They also say I’m here to steal the gold of Sargon. Do I look like a gold digger to you?’ He stuck his grey bearded chin towards me.

‘No,’ I said. I wasn’t going to argue with the guy. ‘What do you think about our photo, Father?’

I hadn’t travelled all this way just to listen to this guy’s ramblings.

He waved Alek’s photo at me. He was still clutching it in his hand. ‘This is Lambda,’ he said angrily, pointing to the upside down V in the top right-hand corner of the mosaic in the picture. He sounded as if he was talking to a child.

‘We know,’ Isabel cut in.

‘But do you see?’ boomed Father Gregory. I stared at him. What next? Was he going to start pulling his hair out?

‘In the old days, people knew about good and evil. They had respect.’

‘You’re right, Father,’ said Isabel, softly.

The monk who’d brought us in was standing beside Father Gregory.

I leaned back as I caught a whiff of stale sweat.

‘What do you need to know?’ said Father Gregory.

‘My colleague took this photo, but we’ve no idea where. It could have been taken anywhere in Istanbul. If we knew where he took it, we might be able to find out who murdered him.’

Father Gregory sighed. It sounded as if he’d decided to cooperate.

‘This photo could not have been taken in St Sophia, but I can’t tell you where it was taken. This mosaic is pre-Christian. Christian mosaics have less of a green tinge, less silica. This is an earlier mosaic, a pagan mosaic.’ He emphasised the word pagan.

‘Even though it has this Christian symbol. That means nothing.’ He pointed at the IH letters. ‘These signify the Greek word for Christ, but the normal letters on a Christian mosaic of the Madonna are the letters MP OY. This is without doubt a pagan mosaic, which someone has tried to make into a Christian one. It should not have been done.’

‘What does the Lambda signify?’ I said.

He glared at me. ‘Lambda signifies Lampas, the light of peace. This mosaic shows Eirene, the daughter of Zeus. She is the goddess of peace. The Arabs call her Al-Lat. Lambda is her symbol. See how she holds her child.’ He tapped the photo.

‘He is prosperity, Ploutos, the offspring of Peace. See, he holds his horn. The horn of plenty. This is not an image of Jesus.’ We all craned towards the picture. The baby in Eirene’s arms was indeed holding a small horn.

‘Eirene was venerated all over the ancient world. If this was our Theotokos, the Mother of God, blessed be her name, she would have had a red or wine cloak and her head would be bowed. The earliest Church in Constantinople was named after Eirene.’ He stopped abruptly. After a few seconds he looked at me, his face darkening.

He pointed a finger at me. ‘Does this have anything to do with the murder in Istanbul, the one they’re blaming us Greeks for?’

He was up to date with what was going on.

‘That’s just in the Turkish media,’ said Peter.

‘Hah,’ replied Father Gregory. ‘Until the knock comes to the door. As for your mosaic, it’s not Christian, but it’s valuable. Is that what you want to know, how much money it’s worth?’ He looked at me disdainfully.

‘No,’ I said.

If what Father Gregory said was true, about the mosaic showing the goddess of peace, it was a missing link between the worship of pagan Gods, and Christian veneration of the Virgin Mary. And I’d never heard of a mosaic with both Christian and pre-Christian symbols on it. How had it survived this long? Such mosaics would usually have been destroyed when temples were converted into churches or, if they had survived, later on when images were banned for a time in the Eastern Church.

Then it came to me. There was a place I hadn’t considered yet for where Alek might have taken the photo. It was a place Alek would have loved to investigate.

‘The Turkish media claim there’s a plot to recover the Labarum of Constantine, Father. Do you think it could have survived this long?’ said Isabel.

‘The Blessed Labarum was stolen,’ said the younger monk, intervening. He seemed angry. ‘It could have helped us on that final day. The day our city fell to the Turks. But it was hidden, on the orders of the Pope. No one knows where.’

The assistant’s face flushed pink. The Labarum was clearly a touchy subject.

‘The Labarum has powers, you know,’ he continued. ‘It, and our other sacred relics, gave strength to those who believed. It sent Goth, Persian and Arab armies back to their homes with their tails cut off, when it was shown on the walls of Constantinople. One day we shall get our sacred Labarum back, and our city too. I pray it will be soon.’

‘I’m not sure the Turks will be too happy about that,’ said Isabel.

The assistant snorted. Father Gregory shook his head.