Dark Water

by Parker Bilal

  ‘She knew Nadir Sulayman.’

  ‘Sulayman introduced you to her?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Let me be frank, Amin Bey, I feel that you are not being entirely honest with me.’

  ‘I have nothing to hide.’

  ‘Perhaps, but no reason to trust me, either, I suspect.’

  ‘As I explained, I had no reason to kill Nadir Sulayman. He was helping me, remember?’

  ‘Yes, with your … agricultural machinery.’

  If Makana had been hoping his flimsy alibi would convince, the Turkish detective’s tone suggested that it was already a leaky vessel. Serkan leaned forward.

  ‘I believe you are innocent of this murder. I also think you are in some trouble, but I cannot help you if you do not confide in me.’ He sat back to light a cigarette as the coffee arrived. The sight of the steaming dark liquid seemed to lift the inspector’s mood. ‘Here we are at the meeting place of two continents,’ he smiled. ‘It’s a cliché, but it’s what makes Istanbul special. It also makes us vulnerable. We have the Russians to the east, Europe to the west and Muslim fanatics to the south.’

  Neither of them spoke for a time, the silence between them contrasting with the noise around them. Seagulls darted through the thick gouts of black diesel exhaust. Ferries arrived and departed in a flurry of churning wakes and grinding engines, while around them were the sounds of people chatting or calling to one another, the occasional burst of laughter. People living their lives, worrying about everyday matters. Under other circumstances Makana could imagine that he might enjoy the inspector’s company, but as things stood he knew that every question was a potential trap waiting for him.

  ‘I heard there was another murder last night. Your karakoncolos killer.’

  Inspector Serkan gazed out at the water. ‘To be frank with you, Amin Bey, we are nowhere near catching this killer. There’s nothing to go on. No link between the victims, personal or professional. Nothing.’

  ‘You have no suspects? No profile?’

  ‘No eyewitnesses, no DNA matches. There appears to be no sexual motive. It is not about robbery. It is simply about killing.’

  ‘A serial killer?’

  ‘The killer is clearly psychotic.’ The inspector shook his head solemnly. ‘The murders take place in remote, unlit parts of town. Even using our traffic cameras, we have been unable to identify a vehicle connected to the murders.’

  ‘The killer changes cars?’

  ‘Perhaps. Or they move on foot. Either way, it’s as if the killer can just melt into the city walls.’ Inspector Serkan allowed himself a long sip of coffee and smacked his lips. ‘Funny, isn’t it? Anyone listening to us might imagine we were colleagues discussing a case.’

  ‘Simple curiosity,’ said Makana, downplaying his interest.

  Serkan wagged his head in a manner that suggested he wasn’t entirely convinced. ‘When we spoke yesterday, I tried to impress upon you the delicacy of my position,’ he continued. ‘This complicates my investigation into Nadir Sulayman’s murder.’

  ‘They want you to solve the karakoncolos killings first.’

  ‘It’s high-profile. All the media are crazy about it. Every time a new victim turns up the Minister for Tourism appears for a photo-opportunity, and then I start getting calls demanding results.’

  ‘So the Sulayman case is put aside.’

  ‘For the moment, until we catch the culprit.’ Serkan studied his fingernails. ‘There is also interest from our intelligence services, the MIT.’

  ‘Really? How so?’

  ‘They think Sulayman was involved in something much bigger.’

  ‘I thought you were working on the idea that one of his underworld contacts had done it?’

  ‘That was a line of investigation,’ confirmed Serkan.

  ‘But not any longer?’

  ‘The Milli Istihbarat Teskilati will never share what they have, but we have to assume they have information connected to Sulayman.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘I’m giving you a chance. If MIT come after you, they won’t be as understanding as I am.’

  Makana nodded. ‘I appreciate that. And if I could help you, believe me, I would.’

  ‘There are a number of things that interest me about you, Amin Bey,’ Serkan said, getting to his feet. ‘Your knowledge of police procedure. Your habits. Even here, now. You claim to be taking in the sights, but you were walking quickly, in a determined fashion, but also cautiously, like a man who was following someone, say.’ He stood over Makana. ‘I don’t know who you are working for, or what you’re after, but I suspect you are involved in something far more serious than buying agricultural machinery. It’s a dangerous game you are playing, Mr Amin, especially if you are a stranger in this city. You should be careful. Everybody needs friends at some time.’

  Makana watched the inspector walk away. Then he turned to look out at the sea. The ferryboat to Heybeliada was long gone.

  The coffee was on the house. The toothless men laughed when he tried to pay. He wandered along the waterfront, reduced now to his alibi, taking in the sights. The choppy water looked deep and troubled. Beneath its surface lay the sunken evidence of countless wars and conflicts. The Marmara Sea had, after all, been the centre of the world for centuries. The rise of the West had shrunk it to a miniature of its former self, an exotic ghost, a sentinel on the borderline forever signalling the decline of the East.

  Now Makana saw in the delicate shapes of the minarets, the horned crescents, the complex architecture of domes and spires, a sad longing for the past, for the old world that was unknown except through books and buildings. With the bid for glory went the urge to make the world a better place, in contrast to the resignation that seemed to dominate the present. This city seemed to be teeming with ghosts, and some of those, he knew, were his alone.

  Chapter Twenty

  In the old Egyptian Spice Bazaar, scarlet heaps of chilli powder, golden turmeric and dusty cumin lent a weary exoticism to the scene. It was easy to imagine traders from the fifteenth century strolling these same aisles. The air was rich with smells and sights. Aniseed, cloves, dried tomatoes, figs like dried ears, pistachios like mounds of seashells. The light and sound threatened to overwhelm Makana. He was looking for a single wisp in a field full of corn. Around him shopkeepers called out prices, offered cut slices of halva, green and yellow cubes of lokoum dusted with powdered sugar. He arrived at the hanging mirrors and watched them spin and rotate, reflected images bobbing back and forth. Today, none of them had the magical power to waft him back in time.

  Was this what he had been secretly hoping for – to meet the ghost of his long-dead wife? There was a name for such delusions. What surprised him was how he had managed to avoid this madness for so many years. For so long he had worked on consigning her to the watery grave into which he had seen her fall. All of that for what? To find himself now confronted by her spirit, walking freely without a care in the world through a crowded bazaar in a city he had never dreamed of visiting?

  The way Makana had seen it, the true mystery of his life was why any woman as beautiful and intelligent as Muna would ever marry someone like him. Maybe this explained why their marriage had always had the slightly unreal quality of a dream about it. He could never quite believe it was really happening. In the last few days he had found himself going back to that era in a way that he had not done in a long time. Perhaps it was the strangeness of this city. The sense of being adrift in the world once again. Rootless. Formless. In the narrow streets, amongst the grey, haunted buildings, the wandering cats. All seemed to present a kind of menace that was less physical danger than a threat to his soul.

  Makana had grown better, or so he had thought, over time, at living with the guilt, the sense of failure. But now it was as if all the intervening years had been swept away, as if the past was reaching out to pull him back in.

  Why had Ayman Nizari asked for him? Was it that he was tr
uly the only person he trusted to bring him in, or was it something more?

  Who had he glimpsed for a brief second that afternoon in the bazaar, gliding across the mirrored surface, disappearing into the crowd even as he turned? And then the second time across a crowded mosque: a young woman dressed all in black, trousers and a long jacket with flared sleeves, a scarf draped loosely over her head to cover her hair. And finally, in the reflection in Nadir Sulayman’s window. A trick of the light? A lie of the mind? Madness would have come as a relief.

  For once in his life, the alternative to losing his mind seemed even more terrifying. Logic told him it was impossible for it to have been Muna. The woman he saw had been too young. Yet he still couldn’t bring himself to believe that it might have been his daughter. How could Nasra be alive? How could she have been alive for so long, all these years that he had mourned her? Why appear here? Why now? There were too many questions. It was too painful. Easier to believe that he was losing his mind.

  Kara Deniz was waiting as agreed in a small café that was no more than a couple of low tables in a dark corner of the bazaar. She fitted in perfectly. The image of anarchic disillusion. With nicotine-stained fingers she shook a pack of Marlboros.

  ‘Were you followed?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty sure I wasn’t.’

  ‘I’m not sure this is a good idea,’ she said, lighting a fresh cigarette from the butt of the one she was smoking.

  ‘What are you worried about?’

  ‘Well, Nadir is dead, so that’s a good place to start.’

  ‘Tell me about him.’

  She studied him through the smoke. ‘Nadir used to be a journalist. I mean, a real tough son of a bitch. He broke all kinds of stories on corruption and government failures. He wasn’t scared of anyone. So they went after him. Eventually, they got something to stick. They threw him in prison and beat him. Badly. If police brutality was an Olympic sport we would win gold medals every time. When he came out he wasn’t the same. They broke his spirit.’ She spoke as if talking was a race, whoever finished first would win. Clearly it was a story she had told many times, but the bitterness still shone through.

  ‘You admired his writing.’

  ‘To my generation he was a legend.’

  ‘You didn’t feel that he had sold out?’

  A brisk shake of the head, smoke spewing from her nostrils. ‘What right do I have to judge him? Prison does things to a person.’ It was a statement that invited a whole raft of new questions.

  ‘That’s when he went into business?’

  ‘I’m done with politics, he said. Everyone laughed. What do you know about business, we asked. What’s to know, he said. The key to success is understanding people, he would say. We’re all the same. Ask yourself what you want and how much you are willing to pay.’

  It sounded like the solution to all problems, thought Makana. Perhaps he should ask himself what he really wanted, maybe then he would understand why he had come here.

  ‘Motivation is the same, whether it’s about journalism or making money,’ Kara laughed. ‘He lost a lot of friends, but Nadir could be very persuasive. People liked him.’

  ‘I get the feeling he didn’t entirely lose contact with his old world.’

  ‘You’re right. He made a point of helping his old friends. He knew everyone and still had the best contacts in the city. Prison brought him a new circle of contacts, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘You mean in the underworld? Organised crime?’

  She was smoking as though it was about to be banned. For once Makana couldn’t keep up. She stared at him.

  ‘You’re asking for my help and here I am spilling my guts out to you, yet I still get the impression you don’t trust me.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Okay, why don’t you tell me what your interest in that ambulance is?’

  Makana looked at her for a moment. ‘I believe a man I am trying to find was in that accident. I think he managed to escape from the people who were holding him.’

  ‘And where is he now?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘And why is he so important?’ she asked.

  Why was Ayman Nizari important? Because of his lethal skills? Because of the interest people like Abu Hilal took in him? Or because he was the only way Makana was ever going to get out of this city?

  ‘He’s a dangerous man, and he has important connections.’

  ‘This is what Nadir was helping you with?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Makana. ‘He was going to help us to get out of Istanbul.’

  Kara Deniz nodded. A waiter appeared, dressed like an Ottoman lackey, in a turban and waistcoat over a silk shirt and balloon trousers. Kara ordered a beer. Makana opted for coffee. The waiter bowed and disappeared without a word.

  ‘I think he might have been killed because of what he was doing for me.’

  ‘You feel responsible?’ She gave a light laugh. ‘Really?’

  ‘Is that so strange?’

  ‘Strange, maybe not, but old-fashioned. In a good way,’ she added. Her beer arrived and she took a quick slug. ‘And with Nadir gone you need someone else to get you out of here.’

  Makana nodded and took a sip of his coffee.

  ‘Interesting.’ She rolled her cigarette between thumb and index finger. ‘So that leaves you with a problem.’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Let’s just say you need me more than I need you.’ She squinted at him over the bottle. ‘You don’t know anyone here. You need friends.’

  ‘Do you have any ideas?’

  ‘Perhaps you should speak to Nadir’s business partner, Nikos Godunov.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound Turkish to me.’

  ‘Half-Greek, half-Russian: Nikos is a world citizen.’ He sounded like a character from a novel. It might have been the alias of an international criminal. ‘He’s a car dealer. He and Nadir were partners.’

  ‘He has cars?’

  ‘He has everything. Any kind of transport you need, Boris can find it.’

  ‘Boris?’

  ‘It’s a nickname. Everyone calls him that.’

  ‘Do you think he will speak to me?’

  Kara Deniz lifted a shoulder. ‘You have money, don’t you?’

  ‘I appreciate your help.’

  ‘It’s not for you,’ she said. ‘Nadir mentored me. He was kind to me over the years, and he wouldn’t be impressed if I just walked away from his death.’

  ‘Who do you think killed him?’

  ‘What I think doesn’t count.’ She drained the rest of her beer and got to her feet. She paused, fists thrust into the pockets of her leather jacket. ‘You don’t trust me. I understand, but maybe if I help you you’ll tell me everything you know. Face it,’ she grinned, ‘you need me. In this part of the world you don’t get far without friends.’

  She was the second person to tell him that, and Makana couldn’t argue. He hadn’t been sure about trusting her, but then again who did he trust?

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The sun was setting over the sea and the sky was peppered with gulls. Makana stood for a moment watching the light turn red, listening to the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. It was a rare moment of tranquillity. It reminded him of another age, another time in his life, when words like happiness and contentment didn’t sound alien. He didn’t understand how someone could hate so much that he could dedicate himself to destroying another man’s life, ruining his family. Yet Makana needed no reminding that such hatred existed in the world. He had never really given up trying to understand evil, even though he knew he never would, not fully, not ever.

  At the root of all of this was the unknown entity that was Abu Hilal. Everything came back to this man. Ayman Nizari was just a cog in the machine. They all were. But the heart of it was occupied by a man prepared to condemn thousands of innocent people to an unspeakable death. To such a man, the means justified the ends. Whereas Nizari was a t
echnician. He mixed the potions up and handed them over. It wasn’t necessarily evil, what he did. It took a certain kind of ignorance, a blindness, a lack of conscience, but that was all.

  As he strolled down across the open square towards the road, Makana became aware that he was being followed. He wasn’t sure who was following, where they were, or how many, but he knew someone was there. He turned left and glanced back up towards the bazaar and the mosque. The minarets were silhouetted against the fading light like twin pillars, as thin and white as bone; a fragile skeleton holding up the sky. He saw him then, about fifty metres away. As soon as Makana’s eyes passed over him, the man dropped his face, as if studying the ground. If there had been any doubt, this gave it away.

  Crossing the street, Makana increased his pace, heading upwards between two rows of buildings. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but he knew there was a taxi stand outside the bazaar. If he could double back he could catch one there.

  As he walked he realised that he had seen the man before. Shaven-headed, with a pockmarked face. He had been inside the Iskander Grillroom that afternoon, together with another man. Who were they? He heard the angry whine of the van before he registered what it was. Then it was beside him.

  ‘Inside,’ said the voice behind him.

  The shaven-headed man was clutching a newspaper and wearing sunglasses despite the fact that the sun was no longer touching this section of the street. He jerked the newspaper aside to show that it concealed a gun. By the look of him he was jumpy enough to use it. As he climbed inside, Makana caught a glimpse of the man behind the wheel; it was the second man from the Iskander.

  There was nowhere to sit inside the van except on the floor. Makana sat with his back to the panelling behind the driver’s cab. The man slid the door shut and crouched down before him, tossing aside the newspaper. The van was already moving again.