River of The Dead

by Barbara Nadel

  İkmen looked into the drug-hazed eyes of the administrator and then gravely nodded his head. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘If you want to be ruthlessly honest . . .’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Then tell me absolutely everything you know.’

  ‘And you’ll get my wife and children out of the city?’

  ‘I will put your wife and children where no one will find them.’

  Mr Aktar thought about it for a few seconds and then he said, ‘All right. All right. I know something about Dr Eldem . . .’

  ‘Just let me make a call first,’ İkmen said as he took his mobile phone out of his pocket and activated the keypad. ‘I must update my colleagues in Mardin first.’

  No one spoke until they were inside the car. The old man, Musa Saatçi, was tired, anxious and very grateful to be getting away from Mardin Prison. He was also keen to see his son.

  ‘Can we go to see Gabriel at the hospital now, Edibe dear?’ he said as soon as Inspector Taner had started up the engine.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. She was just about to ask the old man something when Süleyman’s mobile phone rang. She waited a few moments for him to finish the call, but when it became clear that he was going to be some time she spoke to Musa Saatçi again. ‘Uncle,’ she said, ‘do you have any idea why İbrahim Keser wanted you to hide those armaments for him?’

  The old man hung his head. ‘To my shame, I do not,’ he said. ‘He threatened my boy’s honour. That was enough for me. Was I wrong to be so worried about Gabriel’s reputation, do you think?’

  ‘Uncle Musa, everyone who matters to you believes in Gabriel’s miracle.’

  ‘Then I was wrong.’

  ‘No.’ She took her eyes briefly off the road ahead and looked at him. ‘You are a good father. You know there are vicious tongues in this city, people bent on the destruction of others not in their clan, their political or religious group. Gabriel is a bright light in this darkness. Gabriel brings all right-minded souls together whether Christian, Muslim, Kurd or Jew. Uncle Musa, if Gabriel were a fake it would diminish us all.’

  ‘But Gabriel isn’t a fake!’

  ‘I know that,’ she said. ‘It’s just that . . .’ And then she told him about the death of Yusuf Kaya and the slaughter of his family. As she spoke Musa Saatçi’s eyes filled with tears. He had not, by his own admission, liked the Kaya family but he had had an affection for Yusuf’s mother Bilqis Hanım. She, like he, had been a Syrian. In the back of the car, Süleyman, still on the phone, was frowning and concentrating hard.

  ‘İbrahim Keser had become one of Yusuf Kaya’s people,’ Musa Saatçi said as soon as he felt able to speak again. ‘He was often at Bilqis Hanım’s house. When he was not, he was either at his home next to my own or out about his business, whatever that was.’

  ‘Guarding an American woman, a second wife Yusuf had taken down near Dara,’ Inspector Taner said.

  ‘An American?’

  ‘Some sort of adventuress, I think, Uncle Musa,’ Taner said. ‘You know, one of those western women who are in love with “the east” and take on its culture and its customs.’ In fact she felt that Elizabeth Smith’s love for the Tur Abdin went much deeper than that but she didn’t, even after talking to the woman, really understand how or why.

  ‘Ah.’ Musa Saatçi shrugged. ‘I’ve heard of such women. There is, it is said, a French woman married to a man from Bingöl who has not just become a Muslim but has willingly covered herself completely. It is really quite odd. Most strange,’ he said. ‘Most strange.’

  ‘Or maybe not,’ a male voice from the back of the car put in.

  ‘Inspector Süleyman?’

  ‘That was a colleague from İstanbul,’ Süleyman said.

  Taner looked at him in her rear-view mirror. ‘Saying?’

  ‘Saying that they have discovered that Yusuf Kaya was a far more important player in the drugs world than even we imagined.’ He put his head round the side of the front passenger seat and said, ‘Mr Saatçi, have you ever heard about something called the Wormwood Route?’

  ‘The Wormwood Route?’ The old man thought for a few seconds before shaking his head. ‘No. I know of wormwood the plant, of course.’

  ‘Which grows behind the American woman’s house in Dara,’ Taner said. ‘What is this Wormwood Route, Inspector, and how does it relate to Kaya?’

  ‘The Wormwood Route is a method whereby heroin from Afghanistan may enter this country without being discovered,’ Süleyman said. ‘Yusuf Kaya was, according to my colleagues in İstanbul, at the centre of it. Maybe our American woman was not just besotted with Yusuf and his very quaint land and its people after all.’

  ‘You think she could have been part of this?’

  ‘The Wormwood Route is reputed to be worth billions of dollars,’ Süleyman said. ‘What if Elizabeth Smith were part of it? Zeynep Kaya said that her husband had the American because she was good at business. What if he really did have her only for that? What if she were part and parcel of this route? It would be worth living in the middle of nowhere for a few years for that sort of money, wouldn’t it?’

  For billions of dollars it would be worth living almost anywhere. Also, İbrahim Keser, one of Elizabeth Smith’s men, had been seen at the Kaya family home just prior to the massacre. Not that Süleyman could talk to Taner about that in detail now, not with Musa Saatçi with them in the car. Later, he and she would have to have another conversation, possibly whilst on the line back to İkmen in İstanbul.

  ‘I have no idea what relevance this has to anything!’ Dr Eldem said indignantly.

  ‘Have you or have you not been conducting a homosexual relationship with the nurse İsak Mardin?’ Çetin İkmen reiterated.

  The doctor paused for a moment and then said, ‘Homosexual relationship? Ludicrous! Who told you such a thing?’

  ‘What makes you think that anyone told us anything?’ İkmen asked. ‘Maybe you were observed. Maybe it is a fact of record, or—’

  Dr Eldem laughed. ‘I am not homosexual,’ he said. ‘Who’s saying these things? Is it Aktar?’

  He knew that they had Mr Aktar in custody. But even so, why he should think that the information came from him İkmen didn’t know. It had, of course, but in theory at least, anyone at the hospital could be to blame.

  ‘Why would you think that Mr Aktar would say such a thing?’ he said.

  ‘Well, you have him here, and—’

  ‘So? So we have him here. What makes you think that he has been talking about you?’ He smiled. ‘Dr Eldem, we have been talking about something quite different with Mr Aktar. With you I wish to discuss first İsak Mardin and second the Wormwood Route.’

  There was a frozen, deadly silence. He’d asked Eldem about wormwood before and the good doctor had wittered on about its properties and the manufacture of absinthe. But now that İkmen knew how to talk about that plant in a significant way, things appeared to be different. Dr Eldem’s eyes fixed on a spot somewhere on the wall above İkmen’s head.

  ‘Because you know, Dr Eldem,’ he continued, ‘we know what that is now. We also know that Yusuf Kaya, the only person apparently to know all the ins and outs of this innovative drug route into this country, is dead.’ He watched the doctor very carefully but detected only a very slight shift in his demeanour. ‘What this means,’ he continued, ‘I don’t really know. But at a guess I would say that the route, unless someone has managed to get that information from Kaya, is now not as valuable as it once was. A lot of people have died for it. And of course if someone did manage to get Kaya to part with his secrets before he died, quite a few more people will still die before this thing is over. Anyone, I should imagine, connected to Kaya. Dr Eldem, you tried to make a call from your mobile to a phone registered in the name of a Syrian national an hour before the guard Ramazan Eren died.’

  ‘You looked at my phone records!’

  ‘Of course,’ İkmen said. ‘Answer the question.’

  ‘But I didn’t get through.
It was . . . it was not picked up.’

  ‘Who didn’t pick it up?’

  ‘Well, the, the er, the—’

  ‘Were you telephoning Yusuf Kaya or was it your lover İsak Mardin?’

  ‘But you said it was a Syrian national. You—’

  ‘Dr Eldem, you made the call. You know!’ İkmen said. ‘I think that the name the telephone is registered in is a fake anyway.’ He paused. ‘Dr Eldem, you telephoned someone I think may well have been Yusuf Kaya or someone connected to him and very soon afterwards Ramazan Eren died. Now we know that the cause of his death was not, as you would have it, natural. He was despatched with diamorphine.’

  ‘I—’

  İkmen held up a hand to silence him. ‘Doctor, you were there. Alone. The cameras outside that side room at that time indicate the presence of no other person. You plainly lied about the cause of Mr Eren’s death and we know that you have been conducting an affair with the nurse İsak Mardin. You even, we have been told, on occasion repeat rather irritating little eastern sayings you have learned from him. I think that you know something about the Wormwood Route and I have a feeling you know where İsak Mardin might be.’ He leaned across the table and looked intently into the doctor’s eyes. ‘Faruk Öz is dead; the nurse calling himself Lole deliberately gave us the slip. We need to find İsak Mardin and so if you know where he is I suggest that you tell me.’

  The doctor licked his lips and then was motionless for some time before he spoke again. When he did his voice was cracked and strained with emotion. ‘When Mr Eren began to come round from his coma he was in some considerable discomfort. I, er, I gave him diamorphine . . .’

  ‘You poisoned him with diamorphine,’ İkmen corrected. ‘Dr Eldem, the only way that a judge will look upon what you have done with even mild sympathy is if you come clean about everything else right now. Now, who did you make that call to and where is İsak Mardin?’

  Chapter 21

  * * *

  Edibe Taner visited the families of every man she even remotely recalled as having recognised from Elizabeth Smith’s bodyguard. In some cases the wives and children of these men were in, in others they were nowhere to be found. ‘Gone away’ was all that the neighbours of the disappeared would say. Where families remained behind there was clearly some confusion. They knew of no house in Dara, no American woman with or without Yusuf Kaya. Ominously, the wife of one of these men said that her husband had gone out the previous afternoon and had not yet returned. Had this man been maybe with İbrahim Keser at the Kaya house too? İbrahim Keser was a sore point for Edibe Taner.

  ‘Why would my father tell you that Keser was seen at Yusuf Kaya’s house last night and not me?’ she demanded of Süleyman once the two of them were alone. As soon as they had dropped Musa Saatçi off at the hospital, Süleyman had told his Mardin colleague everything – hence the widespread search for Elizabeth Smith’s guards.

  ‘Your father fears reprisals,’ Süleyman said. ‘If I as an outsider own such information, if it is seen to come somehow from me, no one is at risk. Everyone in your department knows it came from me. That will filter out. It is I who suggested we trace Elizabeth Smith’s guards, Inspector.’

  What had been done had been done at his suggestion, it was true. Also, she knew full well why her father had done what he had. She, much more than Süleyman, knew all about clans and how they worked.

  ‘Madam!’ Selahattin ran up to her as she leaned against the wall of the mansion where two of Elizabeth Smith’s guards had, apparently, lived.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Madam, no one fitting the description of the American has passed legally into Syria,’ Selahattin said. ‘None of the other names you’ve given me have come up either.’

  ‘What about the airport?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he replied. ‘Of course, madam, there is always the possibility that they crossed into Syria illegally. Or into Iraq.’

  ‘Where they might just as well have disappeared,’ Taner said. PKK fighters were known to come and go across that particular border all the time. And although neither Elizabeth Smith nor her men were Kurdish, deals between organisations of all sorts and clans were known to happen often.

  ‘Maybe if Elizabeth Smith has somehow found out the details of the Wormwood Route she and her men are using that,’ Süleyman said.

  Taner was silent for a few seconds before, frowning, she lit a cigarette. ‘But how, if Yusuf Kaya was the only person to know all the details of the route, would she come into possession of that knowledge?’ she said. ‘Kaya was killed in or around Birecik where someone dressed his body in American paraphernalia from Iraq.’

  ‘How do we know that person wasn’t Elizabeth Smith?’ Süleyman said. ‘Not even you knew that she existed until a few days ago. She or some of her men could easily have gone to Birecik. Maybe Kaya’s aunt was lying? Maybe Elizabeth met up with her husband at his aunt Bulbul’s house?’ And then he frowned. ‘But then . . .’

  ‘But then what?’ Taner shrugged.

  ‘But then Brother Seraphim told me that rumour has it that Yusuf Kaya’s father put out the eyes of Bulbul’s husband Gazi Kaplan.’

  ‘That old story.’

  ‘You’ve heard it?’

  ‘Years ago,’ Taner said dismissively. ‘I know that the Kayas are ruthless and tough, but . . .’ She shrugged again. ‘It can’t be true. Apart from anything else the Kaplan family would have retaliated.’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’

  ‘Mrs Kaplan told us her husband was blind,’ Taner said. ‘She also, if you recall, said that her husband had had surgery on his eyes. Why would he have eye surgery if he has no eyes? And how would Bulbul Kaplan know Elizabeth Smith? Yusuf kept her very quiet. Why would he tell a very distant aunt about her?’ Edibe Taner began leading her small squad of officers back to the police station.

  ‘My informant knew about the American woman,’ Süleyman said as he took his cigarettes out of his pocket and lit up.

  Taner turned to look at him. ‘And your informant was?’

  Lütfü Güneş the Kurd, had sworn Süleyman to secrecy. Now maybe he would have to break that confidence. In light of the existence of a drug route apparently worth billions could Süleyman allow anyone anonymity? Could he allow anyone trust? He looked up at the high yellow stone walls around him, walls behind which were many, many eyes and ears, and then he said, ‘I’ll tell you back at the station.’

  They finished the journey in silence. It was only broken, at the end, by Süleyman’s mobile phone which rang just after he had entered the station and was about to ascend the stairs. He turned away from his Mardin colleagues in order to answer it.

  ‘Süleyman.’

  ‘Mehmet, it’s Çetin!’

  İkmen. He was very breathless by the sound of it.

  ‘Çetin. Are you all right?’

  ‘Mehmet, listen,’ İkmen said. ‘You and Taner have got to go to the place where Kaya’s body was found.’

  ‘Birecik?’

  ‘A Captain Erdur of the Jandarma, you’ve met him I believe—’

  ‘Çetin, what is this?’ İkmen was, he knew, perceptive but he hadn’t realised that the man was now reading people’s thoughts at long distance. ‘I’ve just been talking about Birecik.’

  ‘My son Bekir is in Birecik,’ İkmen said. ‘Dr Eldem of the Cerrahpaşa told us that the nurse İsak Mardin left İstanbul with Aslan, in other words my son. They are headed for or have already reached the town now.’

  ‘But why? Why is your son in Birecik, Çetin?’

  ‘Because the Wormwood Route, this thing these people all fight and kill to find out about, is something that he has a keen interest in,’ İkmen said sadly. ‘Mehmet, I fear my son may have killed for this. Like the hospital administrator, he is addicted to heroin. He will do anything to secure his supply.’

  ‘The administrator has told you about Birecik?’

  ‘No, I told you, one of his doctors. I’ll tell you about it later. But both the administrato
r and this doctor are implicated. In exchange for protection for his family, the administrator told me some interesting facts. Mehmet, this drug route is huge. Those involved in it have a very long reach. I don’t know who or what you will find at Birecik, but Yusuf Kaya died there and Captain Erdur of the Jandarma is going to see the aunt who lives there now.’

  ‘Bulbul Kaplan?’

  ‘If that is the woman’s name, yes,’ İkmen said. ‘He said he’d call you, but you must get out there now, Mehmet. You must . . .’ He faltered just a little and then he said, ‘Mehmet, my son is a bad man, and he must pay for whatever he has done, but . . . Look, just try, if you can, to . . . try not to let them kill him, will you?’

  ‘Çetin . . .’

  ‘It would break his mother’s heart, you understand. Break his mother’s heart.’

  Süleyman took a deep breath and then said, ‘Of course I will try to do what I can, Çetin.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  And then he cut the connection. Süleyman looked across at Taner who was standing at the bottom of the stairs staring at him, frowning.

  The Kaplans’ smart villa was quiet save for the sound of a television broadcasting some sort of sporting fixture inside. That Mrs Kaplan was reluctant to let members of the Jandarma into her house wasn’t unusual. Her husband was upstairs asleep and she didn’t want to wake him. However, when she learned that the captain and his men were looking for out-of-towners, bad people from İstanbul apparently, she let them in to have a quick look round. One could not, the old woman said, be too careful in such circumstances.

  As soon as the jandarmes had satisfied Mrs Kaplan and themselves that her house was quite safe, they left. Captain Erdur even telephoned Inspector Süleyman from İstanbul to tell him that everything was quiet. But he didn’t really believe in his soul that that was the case. Süleyman was trying, he said, to persuade Inspector Taner, that rather formidable female from Mardin, to join him on the journey, apparently, across to Birecik. She was not, however, entirely convinced of the need to leave her home city at this point. Many people had died there in the last twenty-four hours.