by Parker Bilal
‘Not exactly,’ said Makana. ‘Just passing through.’
‘Ah … where from?’
‘Egypt …’
The man nodded. He spoke English well. ‘I find it shameful that we cannot speak the language of the prophet together.’
The choice of words surprised Makana. He wouldn’t have taken the newcomer for a religious man, but you could never tell.
‘It’s a shame I speak no Turkish.’
‘Atatürk, father of our republic, took our language from us.’ The man was smiling in an odd way, like a used-car salesman trying to prove he has a conscience. ‘We face to the west now and not to the east.’
‘You should see what they did to my country,’ Nizari chipped in. ‘We were one of the most advanced countries in the Middle East, now we are back in the Stone Age.’
Makana gave him a hard glare, hoping it would stop him talking so much. If the reference to Iraq confused the newcomer, he did not show it.
‘You have my sympathy.’ The man gave a slight bow. ‘My name is Batuman. Everybody here knows me. I am at your service. What brings you to our great city?’
Makana glanced at Nizari, who looked as though he was about to say something and then thought better of it.
‘There seems to be some misunderstanding,’ Makana began. ‘We only came in here to rest for a moment. We will soon be on our way.’
‘Oh, please, do not take offence. I have not explained myself. I am a man of business. I pride myself on being able to spot an opportunity.’
‘Opportunity?’ Makana frowned.
The man lifted a hand. A man in a tracksuit and jeans who was standing nearby stepped up and handed him a newspaper. Batuman unfolded it and laid it on the table. Makana studied the photograph. It wasn’t a particularly good likeness of him, taken, he assumed, from a security camera in the Pera Palas lobby. Still, it wasn’t hard to see who it was.
‘Opportunity,’ said Batuman with a flourish.
‘You want to take me to the police?’
‘You misunderstand.’ A bemused frown creased his face. ‘We do not cooperate with the police. They sometimes cooperate with us, but not the other way around.’
‘I’m not clear what you have in mind.’
‘You are in need of friends.’ The man beamed, like a true entrepreneur. ‘We all need friends.’
Chapter Thirty-one
Makana was fifty metres away from the Sultana Harem Hotel when he spotted them. Approaching from the narrow alleyway opposite the entrance – one of the reasons he had chosen the hotel as his alternative accommodation – he was almost at the end of it when he spotted a familiar bulky figure. There were two men, both silhouetted by the green haze of a neon sign. He recognised the unmistakable shape of Sergeant Berat. The big man was trying to keep the contents of his döner kebab from escaping the paper in which it was wrapped. He licked his fingers while he talked to a man in a fake leather jacket. Makana recognised him too. He had been seated at a table outside the Iskander Grillroom a couple of days ago. He was eating roasted melon seeds and spitting the husks on the pavement.
His new companions signalled and led him away to the right. They turned again and again until they came to another spot where they had an unobstructed view of the hotel entrance. Makana handed over his key and explained that the money was taped underneath the dresser. One of them went ahead and the other stayed with him. Neither of them was out of his early twenties. The one who stayed had a missing front tooth and a bent ear. He lit a cigarette and leaned his back against the wall.
The second one, the one whose head was shaved at the sides, was in and out in ten minutes. He walked straight past the policemen and straight out again, turning left off the main street. Missing Tooth nodded and they all moved off. They met the boy with the shaved head by a stall selling tea and simit rings. The envelope was folded into a newspaper and Makana opened it to check the money was all there. His two minders rolled their eyes, as if they would stoop to such a thing. As they turned to go a shadow detached itself from the wall.
‘You must really love this city,’ smiled Inspector Serkan. ‘I get the feeling you might never leave.’
‘This is a surprise, Inspector.’ Makana signalled to his two minders to stay back.
‘And not a good one by the look of it.’ Serkan ran his eye over Makana’s companions.
‘Well, there have been a few setbacks.’
‘A somewhat optimistic way of looking at things.’ The inspector stepped forward into the light. ‘Considering the fact you are a wanted man.’
‘Sergeant Berat?’ Makana looked over his shoulder.
‘Sergeant Berat has his own methods,’ Serkan shrugged. ‘I try to allow him to develop in his own style.’
‘Are you here to arrest me?’
‘Unfortunately, the case is being taken out of our hands. The death of a British Consulate official has resulted in the case being declared a matter of national security. The MIT has stepped in.’
‘Turkish intelligence services?’
Serkan nodded. ‘Mr Shaw turns out to be an intriguing character, one about whom almost no information is available. The Consulate have requested that we hand all our information to a team of British investigators who are on their way to Istanbul as we speak. They have closed all the doors and we have nothing. He remains a blank. So, I ask myself, what is such a man doing dead in the hotel room of Mr Amin Bey?’
‘I’m not what you think I am,’ said Makana.
Inspector Serkan arched his eyebrows. ‘And what is it that I think you are exactly?’
‘Some kind of intelligence operative. I didn’t kill either of those men and I’m not here to do any harm.’
‘But you’re not going to tell me what you are doing in Istanbul … apart from this agricultural machinery nonsense.’
‘If you’re off the case, why are you here?’
‘I am of the old school. I don’t like it when MIT are involved because it messes up everything. Then it is no longer about bringing the facts to light but, on the contrary, to conceal as much as possible.’ The inspector gave a heavy sigh. ‘I’m here to give you a chance to tell me what you know.’
Makana took another look up and down the street. No sign of any other policemen, but he doubted Serkan would be on his own.
‘You’re suggesting we could help each other.’
‘Nobody likes murder, Amin Bey. As I said, it’s bad for business. I have to give you credit. A second hotel room. We checked everywhere. You made a good choice. The Sultana Harem is run by what you might call a dysfunctional family. They never talk to one another and they leave things in the hands of their newly arrived relatives who are more used to tending goats than running hotels.’
‘But still, you managed to find it. I’m impressed.’
The inspector gave a small bow. ‘We searched the room, and found the money. So we knew you would have to return.’ Serkan offered his cigarettes and lit one for each of them. ‘I had a disagreement with Sergeant Berat. I told him that it was a mistake to put guards outside the front door. Amin Bey was too smart to walk straight into a hotel with police officers outside.’ He gave a philosophical wave. ‘Anyone with two brain cells to rub together would have spotted Sergeant Berat and his goons. I asked myself, if I wanted to retrieve something valuable from the room, how would I do it?’ Serkan looked past Makana. ‘Where did you find your companions, by the way?’
‘Our paths crossed at a useful moment.’
Serkan made a clucking sound like an impatient hen. ‘You know, right now you don’t have too many people on your side. I’m offering you a chance to come clean. I can help you. I can get you out of the country.’
‘Don’t you think MIT might object?’
‘We’re on the same side. That doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything.’
Makana was reminded of the conflict he had had with Mek Nimr. It was so long ago it felt like another lifetime.
‘How do I know I can t
rust you?’
‘What I’m trying to tell you is that you have no choice.’ Serkan smiled as though it was obvious. ‘If they get hold of you, you could disappear from the face of the earth. They can do that. They don’t respect laws. And I don’t need to remind you that there are others interested in you.’ The inspector tilted his head to one side. ‘We need one another.’
‘I wish I could help you,’ said Makana. ‘There’s nothing more I’d like to do than to get this over with, and to leave.’
‘What’s stopping you?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Makana. ‘Maybe, like you, I’m old-fashioned. Once I start something I believe in seeing it through to the finish.’
‘The last time we talked, I asked you about Kara Deniz. Now she is dead. Do you know anything about that?’
‘I know that you would be better off leaving that to your friends in MIT.’
‘Okay,’ nodded Serkan. ‘That’s something.’
‘I can’t say any more.’
‘You understand that just by standing here talking to you I am incriminating myself? Associating with a suspected felon.’
‘I appreciate that. Kara Deniz was mixed up in something much bigger than she realised.’ Makana recognised the inadequacy of his words. Kara’s death seemed pointless. Someone was tidying up loose ends. He suspected that she had betrayed Nadir Sulayman, and in that sense she had caused his death. He would have confided in her, as an old friend, perhaps one-time lover, what he was doing for Winslow, and she had passed on the information to her contacts in the Mossad. The bout of heavy drinking was brought on by the fact that she knew she had caused her old friend’s death. The Israelis wouldn’t have told her what they were going to do. She might have calculated that they would talk to him, put a tail on him, but nothing more than that. In the end it didn’t matter which side you were on. They were all as bad as one another. All that mattered was protecting those you cared about.
‘I’ve been in this business a long time,’ began Serkan. ‘But you know the truth? It’s often my instinct that guides me, so in that sense I am no better than a superstitious grandmother reading people’s fates in the bottom of their coffee cups.’ The inspector gave one of his characteristic shrugs. ‘Istanbul, as you know, lies on the faultline between East and West. We are accessible to both and so we find ourselves at times the victim of our own greatness. I don’t know if I express myself. You know, my English …’ Serkan tailed off into a moment’s silence. ‘There are forces working in this city which are beyond my humble capacities.’
‘Marty Shaw was working for British intelligence.’
‘Ah, and you, with your British passport, are you working for them also?’
‘Right now I’m not sure who I’m working for,’ said Makana. He was concerned that Batuman would be growing impatient and about what Nizari might be thinking. Everything had taken longer than planned, and even before this he had been as jumpy as a cat. Still, he had no choice.
‘I pride myself on being a modern man, a man of science and logic. Observation, analysis, deduction. These are the tools of detection. But there are times when that is not enough and I am outvoted by those brute forces. I can’t protect you for long.’
‘I appreciate that.’
‘Then take my offer, tell me what you know. If not, who knows, the next murder I am called to might be yours.’
‘That’s a consideration.’
‘More than a consideration.’ Serkan moved closer. ‘Here we are talking like colleagues, but we are on opposite sides of the law. Make no mistake, Amin Bey. I cannot protect you without your cooperation. If our paths meet again, I will not hesitate to arrest you.’ He handed Makana a card. ‘Call if you change your mind, but don’t wait too long, for your own sake.’
Inspector Serkan started to walk away. Makana watched him turn the corner, half expecting a horde of policemen to come chasing towards him, but there was nothing. He waited for a time and then turned towards the two young men, who were standing close to the wall, as silent and still as stone.
Together they walked quickly in the direction of the taxi rank in Cihangir and the first available vehicle. It was as the two others were climbing in that Makana glanced over the top of the car and saw something that made his heart stop in mid-beat.
She stood like a frozen frame in the middle of a moving picture. Around her people walked, yet his eyes saw only her. Suddenly everything was clear. All his doubts were gone. He knew also that he had to follow her.
‘I’ll catch up with you,’ he said to the others, closing the door on their protests. He didn’t wait to see the look of surprise on their faces; he was already crossing the street. The wisdom of this, of walking openly through the streets when his face was plastered across the newspapers, echoed dimly in the back of his mind, but he dismissed it. Right now, nothing else mattered so much.
With every step he grew more convinced that his instinct was right. It was her. He kept his distance as she moved along the avenue at a steady pace. Not fast, not slow. Confident.
Out of her line of sight, he had a chance to study her more carefully. She was, without doubt, the same woman in the scarf at the Blue Mosque, the same he had seen in the bazaar, and later in the Sunken Palace. She was not a ghost, not Muna, but the one person he had never dared to imagine he would meet. For almost fifteen years he had believed her dead. Yet here she was. Now he could see the resemblance to Muna, but also the distinctions. Her walk was different. She was a little taller, and he sensed, stronger. Dressed in black trousers and a three-quarter-length coat, her hair was loosely covered by a scarf. She seemed to move through the world less as a person than as a shadow.
The afternoon was fading as evening fell over the city. The sky was a deep indigo streaked with crimson banners. Sparks flew overhead as a red tram rumbled by and neon signs flickered like signals from distant corners of the universe. In greens and blues the names of dead emperors and caliphs brought the street to light in a ghostly electric echo of former glory.
The question ran through his head now over and over like the beat of a refrain, like the chant of a sufi seeking transcendence. Who was she? Could she really be his daughter, or was she Mek Nimr’s agent? He wasn’t sure he wanted an answer. In a way it was better like this, not really knowing, but still believing in the existence of possibility. That his daughter could be alive somewhere still held out hope. Now, following this woman, he felt as though perhaps, in some entirely irrational way, she were the real reason he had come to this city.
Now that she was so close, he feared that one false move would scare her away. Instead, he moved with her, binding his cadence to hers, slowing when she slowed, speeding up when she did. At times she seemed to have a purpose, a destination, an appointment. At others she appeared to be in no particular hurry, almost as if she were killing time, allowing him to see her.
At the back of his mind was the possibility that this was too easy, that he might be walking into a trap. Still, even if he had known with certainty that this was the case, he doubted he could have stopped himself. She stopped to study a window display and he turned to look the other way. When he turned back she had disappeared. Hurrying forward, he guessed she had branched off onto a sidestreet. At the corner he caught a glimpse of her disappearing across a lighted square filled with market stalls. By the time he’d reached the other side she was already moving down a steep winding street lined with high buildings.
The noise of the main road, the vendors announcing their wares, the hubbub of tourists, all soon fell away behind them. The street was so narrow that little light entered, the high walls forming a dark gully through which she walked, trailing him behind her. In the fading light Makana could just about make out her silhouette. Keeping close to the wall, he walked as quietly as he could, careful to keep his distance. He wondered where she was going. The street angled downwards and to the right. A group of Spanish tourists, clearly lost, stood on a corner loudly consulting a map. He slowed, allowin
g her to gain some ground, afraid the tourists would cause her to look over her shoulder.
At the next corner he thought he had lost her again. He moved up and down, left and right, convinced she must have spotted him or heard his footsteps behind her. Cats huddled in doorways, lifting their heads to watch him go by. Out of the corner of his eye a slight hint of movement spun him round in time to spot a shadow flitting through an archway to his right.
He counted five uneven steps that brought him into an enclosed yard. Grass poked through uneven flagstones. A row of broken windows glinted in the moonlight. The enclosed space was eerily silent. He waited until he could make out the sound of footsteps on stone somewhere to his left.
An open doorway brought him to a staircase that threaded its way upwards, losing itself in darkness. It felt exposed, as if the staircase was open to the sky. He could make out shapes moving through the air above, pigeons flapping lazily. Feathers and gritty droppings scraped under his shoes. There were no sounds or signs to indicate that anyone was living in the building. His hand touched railings coated with a thick layer of bird excrement. The air was heavy with an acid ammonia stench. Makana climbed slowly, cautiously, in the dark.
When he reached the first floor he stopped. There was water dripping somewhere and the sound of movement drew him through a wide doorway into a hall lined with cracked windows and missing panes. An old factory, he concluded, the air still heavy with the smell of machine oil. Pigeons fluttered between the rafters high above. Along one side a row of textile looms stood idle like a giant set of mechanical teeth. His eyes began to adjust. Light entered the room through broken skylights in the roof. The floor was damp from the rain. He could make out a scuffling sound from somewhere off to his right, quite distinct from the footsteps he’d been following.
He moved deeper into the gloom. There was somebody there. He could feel it. Moving over, past the first row of looms he stopped. In the poor light he sensed rather than actually saw the figure. It was standing between the machines and the wall. Not quite still, but shuffling on the spot, as if preparing to make a run for it. Something felt wrong. Makana edged forward, taking careful steps as if creeping up on an animal that might dart away at any moment. A part of him wanted to believe the impossible, that it was her.
