On the Bone

by Barbara Nadel

  ‘Is there more than one?’

  ‘I saw two. One was well ordered and neat, each joint clearly labelled. The other one was a mess,’ she said. ‘Unlabelled meat, some bagged up, some not, just flung everywhere.’

  ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘I heard Tandoğan talking to the head chef, Romero, in English,’ she said. ‘The meat had come in for the kitchen upstairs, but it wasn’t staying.’

  ‘Where was it going?’ İkmen asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Aysel led me to believe that nothing was stored in the kitchen upstairs, but it must be.’

  ‘Mmm. Did it look different in any way, this meat?’

  ‘No. But I took a piece,’ Halide said. ‘Part of a leg of something. I’ve put it in my freezer.’

  ‘Good girl. Can you get it over to forensics, or shall I send someone?’

  ‘I just need an hour’s sleep and then I can do it myself, thank you, sir,’ she said.

  ‘You sound shattered.’

  ‘I am. Because Myskow was in the kitchen, it had to be scrubbed so it squeaked,’ she said. ‘I didn’t get home until five.’

  ‘Oh God!’

  ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘No it isn’t! Stay where you are and go to sleep,’ İkmen said. ‘Don’t worry about for how long. When you wake up, call me and I’ll send someone round to pick up the meat. It’ll wait.’

  She was too tired to argue.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ But then he said, ‘Just out of interest, does the meat look like wild boar, do you think?’

  She smiled. He was desperate to know about it. But unfortunately she couldn’t help him.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she said. ‘I can’t tell one type of meat from another.’

  Once she’d put the phone down, Halide snuggled into her duvet and thought about how disappointed her mother would have been if she’d heard her talking about her lack of knowledge. A girl who didn’t know meat would never get a husband.

  ‘Oh!’

  Zenne Gül would have been the first to accept that he had a penchant for good-looking middle-aged men, but this was just ridiculous. It was the second time he’d opened the front door to this man in what had to be only just over twenty-four hours.

  ‘You again?’

  ‘I fear so,’ Inspector Mehmet Süleyman said. ‘I need to speak to Uğur Bey again.’

  ‘Well he’s in but I don’t know whether he’s up yet,’ Gül said. ‘Have you seen the time?’

  It was just before nine.

  ‘Yes.’

  He was clearly unbothered by it.

  ‘Come in,’ Gül said. ‘I’ll get him.’

  The policeman didn’t mind that Gül hung around once Uğur Bey was up.

  ‘We’ve found out the identities of a couple of the boys who’ve been abusing you,’ the policeman said.

  Uğur Bey smiled. ‘Good.’

  ‘Trouble is, they’re missing.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes,’ Süleyman said. ‘Apparently they were outside this building when they were last seen by their friend who also liked to bring trouble to your door.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘The twenty-fourth. In the afternoon, at about five. The boy who was with these two apparently went behind the café to go through their bins for food. While he was gone, the others disappeared.’

  Uğur Bey shook his head. ‘What do you want me to do, Inspector?’

  ‘Let me know if any of your residents saw anything suspicious going on outside that afternoon.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like two teenage boys being bundled into a car, perhaps? Two boys talking about running away from home? One is nineteen, the other seventeen. One small and thin, one medium height, well built.’

  He passed Uğur Bey a picture of a thin boy with a dog. Gül squinted at it over Uğur’s shoulder. He really needed glasses now, but he recognised the face.

  ‘That boy called me a fucking bastard,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to know what I called him back.’

  Süleyman smiled. ‘Did you see anything untoward involving that boy on the twenty-fourth?’

  ‘Who can say?’ Gül said. ‘I can’t really remember yesterday that well, let alone the twenty-fourth. Those kids were always persecuting us. Missing or not, I’m just glad you know who they are.’

  When the policeman left, Uğur Bey said that he was going back to bed. He’d promised Süleyman that he’d speak to all the residents about the two missing boys, but then to Gül he said he only might.

  ‘Why should we give a shit about religious nutters?’ he said.

  ‘Because they’re kids?’

  But he didn’t reply.

  Uğur was usually such a caring man, it wasn’t like him. But then Gül knew he’d had a big session on the beer the night before. He had to be hung-over.

  Gül went to the window to see if he could spot Süleyman in the street. He saw him immediately. He was looking at the pile of rubble where the bathhouse used to be.

  His mother had always said he had a big mouth. His wife, too. Not that her opinion counted for anything. Just because one member of his staff had shown that he had a brain …

  It wasn’t even as if he was fucking him. He didn’t like men. Not like that.

  Boris put his head in his hands. Not even Ibrahim would let this go if he found out. And he was going to. Though even if he did, wouldn’t he just make the problem, and the troublesome man, go away? Probably. But then who else knew? He shook his head. That’d teach him to be careless and curious. Ibrahim, if he found out, would go insane. After all, it wasn’t Boris he was actually protecting. He didn’t give a shit about him.

  But then Boris Myskow had a little play around on Google, and very quickly he saw a possible way out.

  What made a person eat human flesh?

  Hürrem Teker looked down on the city from one of its best vantage points, outside the church of St Mary of the Mongols in Fener. Below, what had been the old Greek quarter and Balat, the Jewish part of Istanbul, tumbled down to the Golden Horn like a dirty heap of children’s building blocks. It all looked so authentic and untouched. But Hürrem knew that a few large bulldozers would make short work of this area, just as they had in the gypsy quarter of Sulukule. The memory of the once crazy streets of that neighbourhood, alive with dancers, whores and musicians, made her remember that Mehmet Süleyman’s gypsy lover lived nearby. But she hadn’t come to see her.

  ‘Commissioner Teker?’

  Even in his ecclesiastical robes, Father Bacchus Katsaros looked athletic. She hadn’t expected that. But then Halide Can hadn’t told her anything about Father Bacchus’s appearance. Halide had never met him, but she had read his books, which was how she knew about his interests – which were out of the ordinary. They could also, Hurrem had felt, move the Ümit Kavaş investigation in a new direction. If Halide was right, there were scenes in society that almost beggared belief.

  She shook his hand. ‘Good of you to meet me, Father.’

  He took her to a house down a nearby slope so steep she felt as if she might tumble head first to her death.

  ‘I didn’t know how to direct you,’ he said as he opened the front door. ‘As you can see, there is no way one can get a car down here.’

  ‘No.’

  The priest’s house was in the middle of a terrace of elegant, if battered, nineteenth-century buildings. Outside, it was filthy, but inside was characterised by clean wooden floors and many small rooms lined with books. It had the look of a place where a man lived alone, although apparently Father Bacchus had a son.

  He offered her tea, which they took in his main drawing room. His ikons and books on Orthodox Christian theology sat in stark contrast to his large range of cheap Greek paperbacks. When they had settled down, he took one off the shelf.

  ‘I don’t know if you read Greek …’

  ‘No. Father Bacchus, this conversation has to be off the record …’


  ‘Of course.’ He smiled, looking at the book. ‘This one is called Dead on Arrival?. It has a question mark after it because we don’t know whether one particular character is dead when he arrives at a hospital in Thessaloniki.’ He smiled. ‘My mother came from that city, I know it well.’

  Teker shook her head. ‘I have to say, I was … well, not shocked, but surprised to find out what you do.’

  ‘Mmm. Priest and archaeologist are not pursuits that are so far apart …’

  ‘Priest, archaeologist and author of zombie fiction, however, does make your job title both long and strange,’ she said.

  He laughed. ‘Ah, but in the world of fiction, I am not Father Bacchus but Kostas Onassis – like the shipping magnate.’

  ‘Is that deliberate?’ She sipped her tea.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Aristotle Onassis was not a pleasant man, and neither is Kostas. He writes about dead people eating live people. What’s to like?’

  ‘You seem to be very nice, if that helps,’ Teker said.

  He laughed again.

  ‘And you’re also an expert on cannibalism.’

  ‘What can I say?’ He shrugged. ‘In the past, in some civilisations, the eating of human flesh was part of everyday life. In some cases human body parts were used in medicine. For instance, crushed Egyptian mummy was thought to get rid of headaches in places like Italy and Britain. That’s why some people plundered tombs, to get hold of a mummy to render to powder and make some money. Ancient Romans drank the blood of dead gladiators so that they could in some magical way obtain their strength. It’s all nonsense. And it can be dangerous. There are a range of illnesses called Prion diseases, which cause dementia amongst other things. These can be directly traced to cannibalism. The image of the zombie is I think so frightening because there is the element of contagion within the myth. Both the creature eating human flesh and the victim contain a sickness for which there is no cure.’

  ‘But zombie fiction is very popular.’

  ‘Ah, zombie fiction can be fun!’ he said. ‘Because it is fiction. The deep roots beneath the image of the zombie are not seen by everyone.’

  ‘You see them.’

  ‘I do, yes. I trained as a scientist, before I was called to God. Cannibalism is taboo in all major religions, but it was not always the case. Blood sacrifice was common in ancient South American religions; in the Middle East, warrior races like the Assyrians and the Hittites are thought to have consumed the blood of their enemies. As in ancient Rome, this was in order to absorb their strength. Religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam developed rules to put a stop to this because by that time, people were more informed. It’s my belief that the very strong taboos against cannibalism in these religions come from an understanding, albeit basic, of how the consumption of human flesh can harm. That said, as a Christian, I have to accept that in my religion, the notion of ingesting – in our case the divine – remains.’

  ‘Do you mean the wine and the bread?’ Teker said.

  ‘Transubstantiation,’ he said. ‘The wine and the bread become the blood and body of Christ. And Christ himself ordered this. I know scholars who will swear an oath that this is simply the replaying of a custom that early converts to Christianity, pagans, would have found familiar and comfortable. I don’t believe that, but …’

  ‘What about cooking and eating a human body?’ Teker asked.

  He nodded. ‘In Papua New Guinea into the nineteenth century.’ Then he paused. ‘You know, Commissioner, I am happy to talk about these things to you, but if you’re a fan of zombie fiction …’

  ‘I’m here on business.’

  ‘Ah, of course.’

  ‘I can’t give you any information at all,’ Teker said. ‘As I said before, I must insist that our conversation goes no further.’

  ‘It won’t.’

  ‘All I can say is that we have a certain situation and we need some expert guidance. I came to you, Father, because one of my officers – a female – reads your books.’

  ‘Ah. In Greek?’

  ‘No, English.’

  She’d seen Halide Can with her head in more than one Kostas Onassis book over the years. More recently, they’d had a conversation about them. Halide had explained that Onassis was actually an Istanbul priest. Then she’d looked him up online.

  ‘Why would someone cook human flesh with a fruit sauce?’ she said.

  Father Bacchus crossed his legs. ‘It’s said it tastes like pork. We frequently cook pork with apples and cider …’

  ‘But why cover up the taste like that?’

  ‘Why not? If you’re thinking that whatever you can’t tell me about was some sort of experiment with human flesh, then I admit that is odd. But if you’re describing a meal … Was there rice, vegetables?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So a banquet?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘If it’s celebratory, it could be part of a ritual. Maybe a cult? Rare, though. Modern cannibals tend to work alone.’

  ‘Like that German case?’

  ‘Armin Meiwes, 2002, yes. He found his victim – who was willing, by the way – online. There was a community, now no more, called the Cannibal Café. It was for people who fetishised cannibals and cannibalism. Meiwes cooked his victim’s penis in wine and garlic before killing him and hanging him up on a meat hook. Celebratory? Maybe.’

  Teker shook her head.

  ‘These days, those sorts of sites are not so easy to find,’ the priest said. ‘Now, I think, if you want to find serious people, you will have to explore what they call the Dark Web. I expect you’ve heard of it.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  The Dark Web was a part of the Internet inaccessible to standard search engines and web browsers. It was where sensitive information lurked and where crimes were instigated and in some cases committed by groups such as terrorists and paedophiles.

  ‘I’m sure you have a department that monitors such sites,’ he said.

  ‘We do.’

  Although in Teker’s experience, even the most skilled technical people were not always as thorough as they might be. An old technical officer, who had left the force, had once told her that the most reliable people to consult about the Dark Web were actually criminals themselves.

  Father Bacchus underlined this observation. ‘And I’m sure they’re very good,’ he said. ‘But the best people to access the Dark Web, I have found, are hackers. They know the twists and turns, the tricks and subtleties of the system. I consulted a, shall we say, reformed hacker when I was researching one of my books some years ago. He is entirely above board these days, but he was very helpful. If you like, I’ll contact him and ask if he might be interested in helping you.’

  Teker knew of old that sometimes in order to get a result, one had to figuratively hold the hand of the devil.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that might be useful. But no details, eh?’

  ‘No. Of course not.’

  Chapter 15

  Thin, dark and nervous, the boy reminded him of his Zanubiya. She too had come from Syria as a refugee. But twenty years ago, it had not been because there was a civil war. Then Assad Senior had been in control and there was no dissent. Minorities had flourished in Syria at that time – with one exception. That was why Zanubiya had left, and why the imam always told people that she had been born a Christian. It was easier.

  The child slept. When they had returned from Karaköy, the imam hadn’t had the heart to throw him out on to the street again. He’d made up a mattress on the floor. Then, once Radwan was settled, he’d called Inspector Süleyman. The policeman had been to the squat but had reported only bemusement on the part of the residents. The imam had expected as much. Now a second night had passed and Radwan was still in his house. This had raised some eyebrows. The mother of the Twisted Boy had said that he was playing with fire letting a refugee into his home. But it was hard for the imam to care. If Radwan stole from him, he stole from him. He was pretty sure that that ot
her boy, Azzam, had taken his bicycle from the yard. But a bicycle was only a thing, and things were replaceable. People weren’t.

  His sons had been seduced away from him by the Internet. Other boys, he knew, supplemented attendance at his mosque with ‘educational’ meetings at the offices of organisations that called themselves charities. But the imam knew they were something else, everybody did. No one spoke – except for the Twisted Boy. But he wasn’t listened to, except by Imam Ayan.

  ‘They discuss Syria,’ he’d told the old man months ago. ‘Then they send boys over there. They tell them they’ll make lots of money, but they lie. They keep all the money they collect for themselves.’

  The imam had warned his sons about the charities, and they had kept away. But ISIS had still reached them. Via the Internet, they were in homes all over the world, promising martyrdom with images that had killed Mustafa and would kill Burak. In the meantime, the imam wondered whether either of his sons had already killed anyone. Specifically, had they inadvertently killed one of their compatriots.

  He should have told them about their mother when she died. He, personally, should have laid her to rest with her own kind.

  ‘Word in the Imperial Oriental is that Boris Myskow is giving one of his private parties tonight,’ Cetin İkmen announced.

  ‘Be interesting to see who comes,’ Commissioner Teker said. ‘I’m sure that Constable Can, now she is a more familiar figure in the hotel, will be able to find out more. But I feel we should also move this investigation along in a more obscure direction.’

  ‘Are these the other avenues of investigation you once talked to me about?’ İkmen said.

  Süleyman sat down next to İkmen and lit a cigarette.

  ‘Indeed. Yesterday I had a conversation with someone who knows about cannibalism,’ Teker said. ‘I mean that in an academic sense.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ İkmen said.

  She nodded. ‘There are many reasons why a person might eat human flesh. They may include belief in its medicinal properties, a desire to ingest the strength of an enemy, or just curiosity. But the person I spoke to believes that human flesh cooked and prepared in the way it was found in Ümit Kavaş’s stomach could point towards some sort of celebration, possibly connected to a fetish, probably sexual.’