by Jane Bastin
The tinny spill of water into the base of the cistern echoed. Sinan stood motionless. He could hear the very faintest of breaths from the far corner. Best to take advantage of the stillness. The columns reflected in the still water set against the soft red and yellow lighting complicated Sinan’s view. Sergeant Mehmet would be just outside the main entrance.
“There’s no way out. My officers are at both entrances. Hand yourself in and we can talk.”
Strictly not quite true, Sinan thought, but worth a try.
There, Sinan watched as the young man’s hat bobbed behind a column. His feet shuffled briefly next to the upside down bust of Medusa. ‘Don’t catch the gorgon’s gaze.’ Sinan remembered his mother’s warning whenever they ventured further up the mountain to the old temple and even then, they would cover her snake hair and piercing eyes with brambles and leaves. Keeping his eyes trained on the young man’s hat, Sinan watched as he moved out of the cover of the column. Thinking he was about to give himself up, Sinan stepped slowly towards him. A bat flew by. The sound of a distant scream and the boy bolted like a startled deer.
“Sergeant Mehmet. Side door by tickets.” Sinan’s voice carried over the hypnotic sound of water.
Sinan heard before he saw Sergeant Mehmet catch the young man’s calf and bring him crashing down.
Back at the police station, Sergeant Mehmet and Sinan moved the young man into an interrogation room before Inspector Haris was informed. Time was running against them and they knew they had literally half an hour to retrieve as much information as possible. Without his scarf and hat, the young man was evidently no more than a boy. His face looked emaciated. Cheek bones jutted like knives and the knuckles on his hands were barely covered with flesh.
“Name?”
Sergeant Mehmet recited the questions from the form but the boy simply stared back.
“Look, we want to help. You give us the information and we shall look into sorting things for you. You are young and something tells me that you didn’t really know what you were doing. Right?”
Tears welled in the young boy’s eyes, his top lip trembled. Not old enough to shave or late adolescence, thought Sinan briefly. Possibly poverty or hunger had delayed his development?
“Water.”
The young boy held the glass, spilling it as he guided it to his dry lips.
“Identity cards… very useful things in Turkey. Great conditioning – we’d forget our clothes, but we’d never forget our identity cards.”
Sergeant Mehmet muttered in agreement. Sinan held a yellow plastic card and read the details.
“Selim Boz?”
The young boy did not look up. Sinan continued but without the questioning inflection in his voice.
“Age 17. Birthplace Batman. Religion Islam. Mother’s name Hatice and father’s name Ismail. Turkish citizen.”
The young boy leant forward, dropped the glass and began to cry. Sinan held Sergeant Mehmet’s arm as he rose to clear the broken glass and they sat and waited. A large clock on the wall behind the young boy ticked with a persistence that irritated Sinan. Inspector Haris’ lackeys would be here soon, he thought, and felt a pressure point throb in his neck. Pulling a clean hanky from his back pocket, useful when the smog from the Istanbul traffic or the ferryboat funnel became too noxious, he pressed it into the young boy’s hand.
“Selim, son. You need to tell us what you were doing there and whether you have any knowledge of these men and woman?”
Sinan laid out five photographs on the table dividing them like a pack of cards. He watched as the young boy sniffed and dabbed the dewdrops of mucus from his nose.
“I know these three but not these. Not the lady.”
“Well done, Selim. Now, I know that you are not a bad boy. You’ve just got yourself caught up in a bit of trouble without realising it, that’s right, isn’t it?”
The young boy snivelled and nodded his head.
“So, how did you know these men?”
“This man contacted me in the internet café when I was playing Call of Duty with my friends.”
“Who? In person?”
Sergeant Mehmet pressed the recording switch to make sure that it was working. He could hear fast moving footsteps, still a way off but he had to be sure.
“In person. An old man. He told me he would give me money for every time I could bring these men to the alleyway. He contacted me by text with their names and the dates and times he wanted. I don’t know what happened to them, I swear.”
Sinan pointed coldly at the photograph of the Prime Minister.
“Son, do you know who this man is?”
The young boy did not flicker, not the hint of facial posturing in preparation of a lie.
“No, sir. I have never seen him before.”
“We need to see your phone, son.”
Sinan saw the brief clench of the young boy’s fists.
“Don’t worry, son. You will get it back as soon as Sergeant Mehmet here has looked at the text. Which internet café did you meet this man at? “
“Yildiz café over in Tarlabasi where I live.”
“Can you remember when this was?”
“Two weeks ago on Thursday because that’s when we got news that my dad was finally dead. A good day.”
Sergeant Mehmet looked up from his notebook and opened his mouth to speak.
“Why might that be?” Sinan asked immediately.
“He used to beat my mum up, that’s why we escaped from Batman but he found out where we were and we kept waiting for him to come. But luckily his cousin stuck a steak knife in his gut and he bled to death. Stole money from everyone. You break the rules, you pay the price.”
The young boy’s tears had dried and a faint smile appeared on his lips.
“Was the man who contacted you Turkish or foreign?”
“Turkish.”
Sinan and Sergeant Mehmet could hear the footsteps get louder as they grew closer to the door. Hurriedly, Sinan thanked the young boy, ordered him to wait where he was and left the room.
Of course, Inspector Haris knew that Sinan and Sergeant Mehmet had not followed orders but they had the mobile phone and some new leads. Before he could be summoned, Sinan left the police station. Walking across Taksim Square, his phone rang. Expecting the rasping voice of Inspector Haris, he flicked it open but instead, Bea’s voice.
“Where are you?”
Chapter Eleven
And you are my sorrow that isn't felt
the more I feel it.
Explaining to Bea why he had run off took time. She pressed for information and he had felt his headache worsen. She rang often and when he did not answer sent text after text probing for reassuring words that there was no one else. What did she think? Of course, there was no one else. There was no one. Loneliness was not a burden but something Sinan embraced. The soft curl of a woman’s fingers might be a pleasant refrain but it was not something he considered long term, at least not since Ani.
His mind slipped uncharacteristically from Yasemin Hanim as she explained in detail about the source of the cyanide cigarettes. Her room was spartan with only a large pink rimmed clock on the wall. Her desk was completely clear apart from a government-issue computer and a small knife. The sort of knife one might use to pare an apple, he thought, or something more. Perhaps she conducts postmortems in her spare time, just for fun. Sinan smiled briefly at the thought of dead bodies on Yasemin Hanim’s desk and wondered what she might do with the blood. Maybe she drank it – an elixir of youth.
“Something amusing you, inspector?”
“No, not at all, Yasemin Hanim. Please do continue.”
Yasemin Hanim splayed her fingers on the desk. No rings, Sinan noted. No buttons on her grey, well pressed jacket. Was their absence a rejection of vanity? No make-up but clear, pink skin that shone beneath the naked lightbulb as it swung gently above them.
“Did you feel that?”
“Yes, seismic aftershock from the small earthquake l
ast night.” Yasemin Hanim spoke in a deep monotone that demanded attention but inevitably lost it.
“Really? An earthquake? Last night? Felt nothing in Besiktas.”
“You’re on the top of a granite hill, that’s why. Now, I do not have much time, Inspector and as you know I am breaking protocol by talking to you like this. Inspector Haris gave me explicit instructions not to divulge any information to you before I present my findings but…”
Sinan smiled again. Yasemin Hanim pursed her lips and Sinan noted the faint lines that stretched from her top lip to the base of her nose.
“I can’t bear the man. Toad.” Yasemin Hanim spoke quickly.
Maintaining steadfast eye contact with Sinan, she pressed a couple of keys on the computer and flared her nostrils. Sinan could tell when something excited Yasemin Hanim. They had worked together on a number of cases over the past five years and it had taken time but he now felt that despite her wall of reserve, he understood. A pinkness that flushed from her throat to her cheeks told him when she had found key evidence in the corpses they encountered. Maggots writhing in wounds, fragments of blades and the most transparent of fibres excited her more than anything. The ability of the dead to pass messages about their assailant underpinned the tightest relationship she had with anything or anyone.
“The cyanide in the Prime Minister’s cigarettes is a type only ever found in implements used by the Russian secret service, both the old KGB and the current FSS. It was first manufactured in Leningrad by Vladimir Ismailov and used most recently in the hit in London on the dissident, Petra Malkov.”
Sinan waited as Yasemin Hanim paused to yawn. “Apologies, Inspector, the earthquake kept me up.” Sinan raised his eyebrows. “Not because I was the slightest bit afraid, you understand but the noise of my neighbours in the flats below was unbearable. Now, where was I?”
“The Russian secret service are probably behind the cyanide cigarettes, at least that’s what I think you were stating, am I right?”
“Yes, yes. Now, you can infer what you like, I am simply providing you with the information I have ascertained. The additional oddity is that among the three civil servants’ corpses were what might have appeared to the untrained eye as the sort of detritus you might find in a run-down alleyway but fortunately I am not untrained.”
Sinan raised his hands in appreciation and smiled.
“The implements used for spell making, still common in parts of Anatolia although less so I thought, in Istanbul but—”
“Recent large scale migration from inner Anatolia has probably brought many of these customs here,” Sinan interrupted.
“Precisely, Inspector. Now, the key things we found were the toes of camels, letters of the Koran tied in minute pieces of muslin, slithers of donkey tongue and the residue of camel milk. These are mainly purchased in the Egyptian spice bazaar. You might also have some luck with the non-toxic ink used for the tattoos.”
Sinan lifted his hands firmly from his thighs as Yasemin Hanim turned her attention to emails on her computer. Lacking social skills was not an issue in Sinan’s eyes. The woman was busy, had told him what he needed and now he had to leave. Simpler communicative skills than the bombardment of words by Bea. The transaction of information had taken place and now it was complete. No need to say goodbye and waste valuable minutes in unnecessary chit chat. Bea, however, tied him in knots with her words and he was tired.
Sinan knew he was only one step ahead of Inspector Haris after a morning of trying to get hold of the FSS link that he knew his colleague (the term, ‘friend’ was over-egging it) in special operations had fostered. An avalanche of missed phone calls appeared on his screen. Inspector Haris’ name repeated line after line as though the telephone had gone into meltdown. Unable to suppress a grin, Sinan thought that this was probably what had happened to Haris.
Sinan strolled over to the Egyptian spice market after leaving Yasemin Hanim’s office in Beyoglu. The early spring sunshine was stronger than it had been in days. Slipping his jacket over his shoulders, he felt a little like the few foreign tourists that still ventured to Istanbul. Sunglasses, short sleeves and the warm breeze from the Bosphorus, Sinan felt the breath of summer. Nothing Inspector Haris could complain about, surely? But just to be safe, he put his phone on silent.
The irony of the New Mosque having been built in the sixteenth century was not lost on Sinan. He paused to stare up at the minarets jutting into the sky like rockets. Climbing the minaret at the Suleymaniye Mosque had all but shattered his tendons and he thought of another Istanbul, the one inhabited by the devout, where life revolved around prayer. Lost in thoughts unconnected to why he had come to the Egyptian spice market, he choked on the sudden impact of the thousands of open baskets of spices. Chatter from each of the stalls was blanketed by the sheer wealth of colour and aromas. Geometrically arranged, each stall was a testament to perfection. A gourmet replica of the sharply defined lines of the mosque outside. Borders carefully drawn between different spices so that crimson, puce, orange and other colours clashed. Rows of dried aubergines and peppers meticulously threaded along thick string hung from the canopies. Sinan stopped suddenly. A sign, not a metaphorical one but literal: ‘Spells. Homemade remedies for life’s problems.’ A small man, gnome-like beard, bulbous nose and hand-knitted hat spread his hands fiercely over his stall.
“Don’t touch. Look, it says it there. Can’t you read?”
Sinan immediately retracted his hand and apologised.
“Sorry. Inspector Sinan Kaya of Istanbul Police.”
Sinan slipped his jacket from his shoulders and pulled out his badge. The man recoiled. Sinan thought he was about to run but the man turned back and proffered a glass of rose petal tea from a gold-plated tray.
“Cold today. Rose tea does the trick.”
Sinan wondered what he must do when it was winter. It had not been as hot for months. Wanting to ingratiate himself, he sipped on the tea and shuffled a little further forward.
“I am a great respecter of the police. Not like many of these half-wits here. Thieves, traitors and murderers, the lot of them. Our most esteemed Prime Minister murdered in his sleep and I bet many here know who did it.”
Sinan drank the tea too quickly. He swirled his burnt tongue around the inside of his mouth. Here was a man who would more than co-operate with the police, he thought, he would probably be willing to accuse an army of innocent people to help clear up the catalogue of unsolved crimes back at the office.
“I’m interested in the spells you sell. Could you tell me about what kind of people buy them?”
The old man wiped his hands over his beard, coughed loudly and swore at the neighbouring stall-holder who had moved closer to listen.
“All sorts but mainly women. You see they need help with catching a man or murdering their mothers-in-law.”
Sinan laughed. But the old man’s beard hid his smile, if he had one.
“And have any visitors concerned you?”
“Such as?”
“Odd behaviour. Wanting to make an unusual spell?”
Pulling on the long, loose hairs on his beard, the old man whistled and stopped.
“Homosexuals, you know the men that like other men.”
“Homosexuals could also be women, you know.”
Sinan heard the approbation in the old man’s voice. The old man stopped again, sniffed the air and let loose a loud burp.
“Nonsense. Women liking women. Hey Mustafa, you hear that?”
The old man loomed over the side of the stall at the smaller man in the next stall who shuffled backwards.
“Well, a man came in wanting to stop these feelings for other men, he told me. I felt sorry for him so I made him a spell and, do you know what, I didn’t charge for it. God’s work, I call it.”
Sinan felt the heat on the back of his neck. His phone buzzed uncontrollably against his leg.
“What was in the spell?”
“Camel’s milk – I get it from the Arabs,
Saudi Arabia, you know.”
The old man brushed his hand over the stall as though rummaging through his memories.
“Donkey tongue, got that from the butcher down the road. He gives it to me for free otherwise it’s only going into his sausages. Oh, and some star of anise and, of course, my special muslin bags of letters from the Koran. I cut these up, take them into the New Mosque at Friday prayers and they’re blessed. All ready for sale.”
“That’s very useful, Mr…?”
“Haydar bey. Haydar bey from Rize. Most people know me as ‘Doorway Haydar’, that was my job before I got this stall…”
“Great. Haydar bey, I don’t suppose you would be able to identify the man who came to buy the homosexual spell, would you?”
“Of course, I can. I have a photographic memory. I memorised the entire Koran in two weeks. ‘Unbelievable’, the imam said. Not like these heathens around here.” Haydar bey spat the words out. “A small man with a round face, two eyes, a nose and a mouth.”
“And…any distinctive features?”
“Such as?”
“Well, glasses or scars or clothing?”
Haydar bey pulled on his beard, muttered indistinctly.
“No, nothing. But I do remember a blonde woman who came in two days ago looking for the tattoo ink that isn’t poisonous I keep here.”
Haydar bey swept his hand over a pile of red powder scooped in the middle to form a mound.
“Now, she told me her name… what was it?” Haydar bey resumed his muttering before spluttering, “That’s it, Sylvia. That was her name. Swedish, she told me. Here at some conference.”
If she were hiding something, why would she have told him her name and what she was doing in Istanbul? But, why on earth would she have bought non-toxic tattoo ink? The poor woman looked as though she was barely surviving. Historical precedents. Sinan drew on them like water from a well. Patterns repeated. Like the Ottoman women who were kept imprisoned at home, only allowed to look through the slats in the wooden shutters, Sylvia was able to glimpse life through the eyes of her husband.
