‘No.’ He tapped on the top of his desk with his fingers. ‘I’ll have to tell Dr Sarkissian.’
‘He knew your son.’
‘Of course.’ He smiled and then, sighing, he frowned once again. ‘But later. Ayşe, I have called Commissioner Ardıç, on his day off, and he is not, as you can imagine, very pleased about that.’
A mental picture of the commissioner’s red and angry face came into Ayşe’s mind. That was Ardıç on a reasonably good day. ‘Sir?’
‘If I want to instigate a full search for my son, I have to go through him,’ İkmen said. ‘Total honesty is the only way I can move forward with this. I also have to tell him, as I am telling you, that I think the timing of my son’s sudden reappearance was no accident.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean I think it is possible that my son might have been mixed up in Yusuf Kaya’s escape,’ İkmen said. ‘I don’t know how. But Sophia told us that Aslan knew Kaya. My son turns up at my home on the same day that Kaya escapes. Hüseyin Altun has been killed.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Coincidence or not,’ İkmen interrupted, ‘Altun, an albeit petty drug peddler, goes to join luminaries like Tommi Kerensky whose “soldiers”, as İzzet pointed out earlier, did not take revenge upon him when he was in prison. My son appears with drugs and wormwood. Wormwood grows around one of Yusuf Kaya’s houses in Mardin. All the names of the nurses at the Cerrahpaşa lead back to Mardin . . .’
‘Sir, it’s all circumstantial.’
İkmen lowered his head.
‘Until Inspector Süleyman or someone finds Yusuf Kaya or until someone speaks to make these connections real in some way, we won’t know,’ Ayşe said. ‘Sir, believe me, I can see why Sergeant Melik thinks that there’s some sort of conspiracy at work here.’
‘Yusuf Kaya didn’t just escape to escape but to do something specific too,’ İkmen said. ‘Ayşe, I don’t have to tell you how competitive the drug trade is now.’
‘Since the Taliban were effectively taken out of the picture in Afghanistan, it’s gone crazy, yes,’ Ayşe said. ‘I hate the Taliban; they’re so violent towards women it makes me want to weep. But they did control the heroin. Now it’s anyone’s game and there’s so much money to be made it is ridiculous.’
‘Kaya behaved with total recklessness when he murdered Tommi Kerensky,’ İkmen said. ‘Inspector Süleyman told me at the time that at his trial Kaya didn’t appear to care about where he was or what was happening to him. What if Kaya was in the process of making the biggest deal of his life?’
‘But sir, the drug trade moves very quickly,’ Ayşe said. ‘When Yusuf Kaya was put in prison someone else would have jumped into his shoes if he had an outstanding deal.’
‘This is true,’ İkmen sighed. But then he frowned again and said, ‘Unless it was bigger than a deal . . .’
‘Bigger than a deal?’
İkmen’s telephone rang and he leaned across his desk to pick it up. ‘İkmen.’
Bigger than a deal? What could possibly, for a drug dealer, be bigger than a deal?
İkmen put the receiver down and then stood up. ‘Ardıç is in his office,’ he said. ‘I must go and see him.’
Just before he left, and although her mind was still puzzling over what he had just said, Ayşe told her boss that she personally would look for Bulgarian Sophia.
‘If you find her, then bring her back here,’ İkmen said with a smile. ‘Sophia should know who Aslan is from me. I’d like to help her if I can, but . . . Oh, and Ayşe, Sergeant Melik has gone back to the Cerrahpaşa. He has some notion that possibly the administrator may have some more to tell us.’
Underneath all the filth and beyond the obvious lack of nutrition, Gabriel Saatçi was clearly a good-looking man in an ethereal sort of way. It was impossible to even guess at his age, but if he had been to school with Edibe Taner then he was probably in his mid to late forties. As he moved through the silent crowd, Süleyman noticed that he was laying a trail of blood behind him which looked as if it had to be coming from his feet. Filthy hands held a wooden box out in front of him, and his dark, almost fierce eyes concentrated on it intently. No one spoke. Edibe Taner, walking behind the monk, did so with obvious caution. Then suddenly Gabriel Saatçi looked round at the assembled company and spoke in a low, deep voice. What he said Süleyman couldn’t tell, and although he knew that Seçkin Taner would in all probability translate for him, he was loath to speak to anyone at such a seemingly delicate moment. All he could make out was the name İbrahim in there somewhere.
Not one member of those assembled moved for a long time. Even Edibe Taner remained absolutely still behind her old friend Gabriel. It must have been a good five minutes before one of Elizabeth Smith’s guards stepped down from outside the marquee and approached the living saint. He was a short, tough-looking man of again probably about forty-five or so. Süleyman remembered seeing him at the house outside Dara. As the man approached him, Gabriel Saatçi began to berate him. This time Seçkin Taner leaned over towards Süleyman and provided a translation.
‘Brother Gabriel says this man, İbrahim Keser, must no longer torment his father. He says that he must face him himself, like a man.’
‘What does that mean?’ Süleyman asked. ‘Whose father? Gabriel Saatçi’s father?’
Seçkin Taner shrugged. ‘I imagine so. The man, Keser, is neighbour to Musa Saatçi. That is all I know.’
As he stood, shaking either with rage or under the force of a torrent of Aramaic abuse, İbrahim Keser bowed his head.
‘Brother Gabriel says this man is a dog and an unbeliever,’ Seçkin Taner said.
‘The man is a Christian?’
‘Yes. But Brother Gabriel means in general, I think. I think he means that Keser is a man without God, you know?’
A man not unlike himself, Süleyman thought. Years ago he had loved Allah and the Prophet. He’d gone to the mosque regularly with his father, his grandfather and his uncle. When had he banished Allah from his life? It wasn’t as if he were even a happy atheist like Çetin İkmen!
A loud click made Süleyman attend to the scene before him again. It was followed by gasps of shock from everyone around him. The monk had opened the wooden box now and was holding it up. Two sinuous snakes’ heads appeared at the opening and one of the creatures began to writhe. The monk spoke in a low, trembling voice while the man standing in front of him sweated. Edibe Taner, still behind the monk, spoke softly to him whilst holding back the officer at her side with one hand. The policeman in question had drawn his pistol.
‘Brother Gabriel says he will prove to this dog that his miracle is real,’ Seçkin Taner said to Süleyman. ‘My daughter says he must not do this here with all the ladies and the children around.’
‘But . . .’
Edibe Taner spoke again.
‘My daughter says that if the snakes get away the police will kill them.’
The monk apparently ignored her then, and Süleyman watched as Edibe Taner’s face went grey. Gabriel Saatçi picked one snake up in each hand and then held the two of them aloft. He said something which Süleyman didn’t understand. But this time he didn’t get a translation because Seçkin Taner had run down to take charge.
Chapter 17
* * *
‘Mr Oner, your predecessor, died last month as a result of ingesting disinfectant,’ İzzet Melik said to the pale man in front of him. ‘It was Mr Oner who gave İsak Mardin a job here in the hospital. Last year Mr Oner also employed the nurses Lole and Öz. Öz, whose real name was actually Hasan Karabulut, a relative of Yusuf Kaya, the escaped convict, is now dead, and Lole deliberately gave our officers the slip earlier today. Now, sir, one of your patients, a man who was a witness to the prisoner Yusuf Kaya’s escape from this very hospital, has been declared unlawfully killed by an overdose of diamorphine. We have questioned the doctor entrusted with his care, Dr Eldem, and we are not satisfied with his explanation of that death.’
�
��Why not?’ The hospital administrator shook as he spoke. Once he’d given this thuggish policeman Eldem’s address he hadn’t expected to see him again. Well, not so soon, anyway. ‘Why aren’t you satisfied?’
‘Because we don’t believe that Dr Eldem is telling the truth,’ İzzet replied. ‘Everything comes back to this hospital and I want to know why. Öz we know knew Kaya, Lole is a name famously associated with Kaya’s home town of Mardin and of course Nurse Mardin has a connection that speaks for itself. It also, sir, speaks of an arrogance and a confidence on the part of whoever has been orchestrating these events.’
‘These events? What do you mean “these events”?’
‘I mean, sir,’ İzzet said, ‘the ease with which Kaya and whoever was with him got out of this building. I mean the way that the tape in your security cameras is so frankly overused and fuzzy.’
‘The men on the film were wearing stockings or some such over their heads. Of course nothing much could be seen! Your superior told me so!’
‘Did he?’ İzzet looked round quickly to make sure the door to the administrator’s office was closed. It was and, since it was a Sunday, there was no noise coming from the corridor outside. ‘Well, I’m telling you that was only part of the problem we had with that film. It was fucked! Old damaged tape! How many times did you use it, eh? How much money did that save you?’
‘I—’
İzzet pulled one large arm back and then hit the hospital administrator sharply, if not hard, across the face. His lip split open, just a little bit, immediately.
‘You can’t—’
İzzet walked round to the back of the administrator’s desk and took his head in the crook of his arm. ‘I can do whatever I like,’ he hissed. ‘And I will until you, sir, tell me just what is going on here!’
A thin dribble of blood oozed down on to the administrator’s chin. ‘I – I can’t . . .’ He struggled to breathe, let alone talk. There was a long pause before either of them spoke again.
‘Sir, I am very sorry that I hit you,’ İzzet said. ‘I am truly very sorry for that. But you must understand that people are being killed. Sir, to be party to an escape from prison, to even be involved in drugs is one thing. But to be an accessory to murder . . .’
‘I am not an accessory to murder!’
‘Dr Eldem will eventually tell us what we need to know,’ İzzet said. ‘He was packing his bags for a journey when I got to his house. That makes me very suspicious.’
‘About me?’ İzzet had loosened his grip slightly upon the administrator’s throat now, enabling him to speak much more easily. ‘It was I who gave you Eldem’s address. Were I in league with him for some reason, why would I do that?’
After a moment, İzzet let him go and walked round to the front of the desk again. He sat down and put his head in his hands. ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured through his fingers. ‘I am really, really sorry. I . . .’
There was a pause. The administrator took a tissue out of the box on his desk and held it up to his bleeding lip. After a few moments’ apparent thought he said, ‘Well, you have a hard job to—’
‘Oh, that’s no excuse,’ İzzet said, as he looked up red-eyed into the administrator’s face. ‘I just had this theory and people were listening to me for once and . . .’
‘You got a little carried away,’ the administrator said.
İzzet swung his arms out to his sides in a gesture of hopelessness and then said, ‘Sir, if you wish to complain you may do so. I have no defence to offer whatsoever.’
The administrator sat back in his chair and once again dabbed the tissue against his lip.
‘I’ll even, sir, support you,’ İzzet said. ‘I have a problem with my temper, or I can do, and—’
‘Sergeant, I don’t think that there will be any need for that,’ the administrator said. ‘I . . .’ He looked down at his desk and smiled and then he said, ‘Accept that I don’t know anything about this Kaya business, which is the truth, and we’ll say no more about it.’
İzzet sat and considered what had just been said to him for some little time. Or looked as if he was.
‘There’s no risk to you,’ the administrator said. ‘I’m telling the truth, after all.’
A little more time passed in silence before İzzet Melik stood up to shake hands with the man beside his desk. ‘I’ll write up that you simply had nothing to add,’ he said. Then, in what could have been interpreted as a gesture of affection, he placed one of his hands on the top of the administrator’s arm.
‘Sergeant . . .’
And then he pulled the shirt sleeve, hard. The arm that had been concealed inside was thin and covered in a spider’s web of angry track marks.
İzzet stared the man straight in his frightened eyes and said, ‘I thought I caught a glimpse of something when you rolled up your sleeves to get into Dr Eldem’s Personnel file. You just about caught yourself in time, but I saw you. I had to be sure, however. Now I am.’ Then he called out to the officer he knew had been outside the door all the time. ‘Constable? Get in here!’
The door opened while the administrator just looked down at his own arm with horror. ‘You, you . . .’
‘Now, sir, in answer to your question about why you would give me Dr Eldem’s address if you were in league with him, let me tell you that, as you well know, there isn’t much a junkie will not do to save his own skin.’ He turned round to face Constable Doğa. ‘Let’s get this man down to the station.’
‘Seçkin Bey is asking for Mar Gabriel to give the snakes to him,’ the young Suriani girl said to Süleyman. ‘They will not bite Seçkin Bey. He is their master.’ The daughter of one of the Master of Sharmeran’s friends, she had come over to translate for the man from İstanbul.
Süleyman looked down at the girl in horror. ‘What kind of snakes are they?’
‘Vipers.’
Seçkin Taner was approaching the monk now, his arms outstretched. As he moved past the terrified figure of İbrahim Keser he spoke softly and gently to Gabriel Saatçi who, though trembling also, Süleyman could see did appear to be listening to him now.
‘Seçkin Bey says that this is not the way, that the Sharmeran will be displeased with him if he hurts anyone,’ the girl said.
The monk screamed then, a hail of what to Süleyman sounded like pure invective.
‘Mar Gabriel says that this man, Mr Keser, must confess his sins. He says that he will perform his miracle now.’
Arms as thin as tree branches raised the snakes high up into the air as the monk began to sing. Seçkin Taner very calmly carried on talking.
‘What . . .’
‘Mar Gabriel will now let the snakes bite him,’ the girl said. ‘I wasn’t born the first time that he performed his miracle.’
The implication being that this was all very exciting. Edibe Taner, still behind the now swaying monk, looked about as far from excited as one could get. She said something and almost immediately the monk dropped to his knees. For a moment Süleyman thought that he had been shot. Then he remembered about the snakes. They were no longer in the monk’s hands.
Someone screamed and Edibe Taner, the armed constable still at her side, shouted something into the air. But whatever she said had little effect upon the people in the courtyard and the garden, who were running as far away as they could from where the monk had fallen. It wasn’t until almost a minute had passed that anyone, including Süleyman, realised that Seçkin Taner now had a viper in each hand and was holding them aloft for all to see. He was smiling and, though restrained, the two serpents seemed to be comfortable enough in his company. His daughter, now down on the ground beside the monk, was calling for help. A balding man of about fifty and Süleyman himself ran over. As he passed Seçkin Taner he saw that the Master of Sharmeran was placing the snakes back in the box they had come from.
‘Dr Kozlu,’ Edibe Taner said to the balding man in Turkish, ‘he just collapsed.’
The doctor took the monk’s thin wrist between his f
ingers and then looked at his watch. But Süleyman could see that the monk was, if very shallowly, breathing.
‘I thought he’d been shot,’ he blurted as Edibe Taner regarded her friend with great concern.
She ignored him. ‘Doctor . . .’
‘Well, he has a pulse,’ the doctor said. ‘Just collapsed. But from the state of him I’d reckon he’s probably dehydrated.’ He took a mobile phone out of the pocket of his jacket and switched it on. ‘I’ll admit him to the hospital.’
‘He’ll be all right, won’t he, Doctor?’ Edibe Taner asked. But Dr Kozlu was too busy on the phone to answer her. She looked down at the monk’s face and, with tears in her eyes, said something to him in Aramaic. All around people were gathering to see what had happened to their saint. But now more police officers had come into the grounds and they were holding a lot of the people back.
When she finally did manage to speak to anyone apart from the monk, Edibe Taner said to Süleyman, ‘The American woman’s guard is İbrahim Keser. İbrahim Keser, Uncle Musa’s neighbour. Gabriel was goading him. Accusing him! Inspector, will you make sure that Keser doesn’t leave the church, please?’
Süleyman said he would. However, search as he might, he couldn’t find Keser, Elizabeth Smith or any of her other guards anywhere. He ran out on to Avenue One to see whether a large truck was still parked by the pavement. But it wasn’t.
Sophia the Bulgarian girl was almost certainly not a regular churchgoer. But pregnant and alone in a foreign country she would in all probability, Ayşe felt, make an exception for the Easter service.
The church where the Bulgarian and Macedonian community in İstanbul worship is called St Stephen of the Bulgars. Situated in the old Greek quarter of Fener it stands in a small iron-fenced park beside the southern shore of the Golden Horn. It is a unique building in that it is constructed entirely of prefabricated cast-iron sections. Cast in Vienna, it was floated down the Danube and then erected piece by piece in Fener in 1871. An ornate, heavily ornamented building in the neo-Gothic style, St Stephens is, to those unaccustomed to it, an oddity. As Ayşe Farsakoğlu walked past those members of the congregation leaving the church she looked around the dark and in places rusted interior with some curiosity but not very high hopes. Although Orthodox ceremonies did go on sometimes for many hours it was late and she imagined that Sophia had probably returned to wherever she was living now. But she was proved wrong. At the back of the church, underneath a particularly dark and rusted ornamental niche, sat the girl, seemingly lost in thought.
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