Deadly Web

by Barbara Nadel

  ‘Stop it!’ Süleyman hissed as he pulled his hand away from her.

  ‘Stop what?’

  ‘Stop slandering your stepmother and stop trying to get me to touch you!’ He stood up. ‘Because I’m not interested,’ he said. ‘I came here to speak to you about aspects of your lifestyle that may prove instructive in relation to an investigation.’

  ‘I don’t know whether my daddy would believe you,’ Fitnat said with a seductive pout. ‘Coming here, to a girl on her own . . .’

  ‘Don’t threaten me!’

  The girl’s face darkened. With her jaw set in anger she suddenly looked most unattractive. ‘Don’t you dare reject me!’ she spat. ‘My friends saw me talking to you the other evening. They’ll tell my father you made suggestions to me. Who do you think he’ll believe?’

  ‘I need to speak to İlhan, Fitnat. People’s lives could depend upon it!’

  ‘Then you’d better do as I ask,’ she said as she twined one of her arms around his neck. ‘Daddy’s going to be out for hours.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m here.’ The voice was female. Both Fitnat and Süleyman turned towards it.

  ‘Zuleika!’

  ‘Go to your room, Fitnat. I’ll deal with you later.’

  Fitnat released Süleyman and then ran over to her stepmother. ‘Zuleika, he tried—’

  ‘Go!’

  Her face red with either fury or frustration or both, Fitnat ran crying back towards the house. ‘Slut!’ she screamed. ‘You’re not good enough for my father!’

  When she had gone, Zuleika sighed. ‘I’m so sorry about that, Mehmet,’ she said.

  ‘You heard?’

  ‘Enough, yes,’ she said. ‘Since her mother’s death, Fitnat has been quite out of control. I don’t know why you’re here but I know it was for an honourable reason.’

  ‘I need to contact her friend İlhan.’

  ‘And she said she’d give you his details if you slept with her?’ Zuleika smiled. ‘She thinks it’s a way of getting at me. I’m so sorry that you got involved.’ She moved towards him and put her hands around his face. ‘Still so handsome. It’s such a curse. I’m so glad we’re only friends now.’

  He smiled.

  ‘If you want to contact her friend İlhan, I’ll give you his details,’ Zuleika said as she moved away from him again.

  ‘You know this boy?’

  ‘No,’ Zuleika said, ‘but I follow her on occasion. She’s a nasty spoiled little brat, but I am afraid for her, Mehmet. She goes to some bad places. I have to protect her, for Burhan’s sake. If anything happened to her, it would destroy him and I couldn’t take that.’ She looked grave. ‘I care for Burhan, Mehmet – he’s my very best friend. If anything happened to him I don’t know what I’d do.’

  CHAPTER 11

  Fortunately for Çöktin, the address Süleyman had given him was very close to Hüsnü’s place in Cihangir. This meant that once he’d spoken to İlhan Koç, he could just walk over to the hacker’s high-tech apartment. He’d have to dispense with the two uniforms he had with him now, of course, but that wouldn’t be a problem – depending, of course, on what the Koç boy had to say.

  The name Cem Ataman was familiar. They had, İlhan said, been no more than friends. Cem, who İlhan described as a ‘straight’ boy, had been more interested in his clothes than anything else. Although not what Çöktin would have described as a transvestite, İlhan was certainly a boy who enjoyed the pleasures of women’s clothing and make-up. Wearing a red silk Chinese-style blouse over very tight-fitting jeans, İlhan Koç was sexless rather than effeminate. Although wearing carefully applied lipstick, eyeliner and mascara, his hair, which was styled upwards in sharp points, lent an almost aggressive masculinity to his tall thin figure.

  ‘I think he got in with me because he thought I was something I’m not.’ İlhan looked over at the two straight-faced uniforms sitting across from them and then leaned in towards Çöktin. ‘Some of the, you know, the real nutters down at Atlas like to dress like I do,’ he said. ‘Very flamboyant. Particularly in the Hammer.’

  ‘Which is a bar?’

  ‘Yes. My friends and I don’t go there,’ he said, adding darkly, ‘it’s too much.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that I like the clothes and the music and everything, but all that perverse stuff isn’t for me.’

  ‘Perverse stuff?’

  İlhan moved still closer and whispered, ‘Sexual confusion. Men dressing as women, women beating them. They all cut each other in the Hammer and there is talk of devil worship.’

  ‘Which Cem Ataman was interested in?’

  ‘Yes.’ İlhan looked down at the floor, his face straight and sad. ‘Or rather he was interested in learning the words they all use down there – which I taught him.’

  Çöktin raised an eyebrow. ‘Words?’

  ‘The Hammer people use the same secret words as the transsexuals,’ he said. ‘I have a friend of that . . . persuasion, a transsexual, who taught me.’

  ‘When you were maybe considering becoming a transsexual yourself?’ Çöktin asked.

  İlhan looked away. ‘I’m not prepared to answer that.’ And then turning his head back to face Çöktin again, he said, ‘All you need to know is that some people in the Hammer also use the same words. It’s how they pass messages between them they don’t want others to understand.’

  ‘But you do, right?’

  İlhan sighed. ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you know that people in the Hammer are actively worshipping the Devil?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you just said—’

  ‘I know that they want to,’ he said, ‘but whether anything other than sex actually goes on, I don’t know. There are a lot of people there who just, I think, play about with the idea. I said that to Cem when he asked, but he still wanted to learn the words anyway. Cem was a bit, you know, intellectual. He knew, I think, a lot about devil worship.’

  ‘And so he wanted to meet others of his kind?’

  ‘Yes. Although I don’t think that the Hammer provided him with anything.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because he didn’t stick around for very long. I met him a couple of times and we talked, and then I think he went to the Hammer maybe once or twice on his own, and then nothing. I can’t have seen him for eight months or so. I was very shocked to hear that he’d committed suicide.’

  ‘Have you heard of any others interested in diabolism who have gone on to kill themselves?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So Cem’s death and his interests could be unconnected?’

  ‘Yes,’ İlhan looked down at the floor again, ‘and no. Some of the things they do in the Hammer are pretty odd. The cutting and the beating and everything. Like I’m always saying to my friends, if you get mixed up in those things . . .’

  ‘These secret words,’ Çöktin said. ‘Give me an example.’

  İlhan had been surprisingly accommodating up until this point but now he drew the line.

  Çöktin, who had taken the precaution of returning to the station after Süleyman’s call, took a piece of paper out of his pocket and looked down at it.

  ‘So if I were to say the word “madi” to you, or maybe “haş gagi” . . .’ He could see İlhan’s face pale beneath his thick, pancake make-up. ‘Words used, we think, to maybe communicate instructions to Cem and possibly others over the Internet . . .’

  ‘You mean devilish things?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  And so, with a sigh, İlhan told Çöktin what the words meant. ‘“Madi” means ugly,’ he said, ‘and a “haş gagi” is a real woman.’

  ‘What do you mean, “real” woman?’

  ‘Not a transvestite, someone born a woman who has had sex with a man – not a girl, in other words.’

  Çöktin frowned. The unknown person called Nika had referred to Gülay Arat as someone about to become a haş gagi. Nika, therefore, must have known the girl was about to have sex. Bu
t did Nika know with whom?

  ‘Do you have any idea about the origins of these words?’ Çöktin asked.

  İlhan shrugged. ‘My friend says it’s a mixture of Armenian, Ladino and gypsy, but I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you know anything about people using these words in newsgroups?’

  ‘No,’ İlhan replied. ‘Or rather, I don’t have any direct experience myself. I know people do that, but I don’t.’

  ‘What people?’

  İlhan, aware that this conversation was going in a direction he felt he didn’t like, said, ‘I’m not prepared to name anyone, you know. My friends are quite innocent.’

  ‘You’ll do what you have to,’ Çöktin said softly. ‘And that means telling me what I need to know.’

  The Sahaflar, the courtyard of booksellers, can either be entered from Beyazıt Square or from inside the Grand Bazaar. This tranquil square of bookshops, based around a bust of İbrahim Müteferrika – the man who in 1729 produced the first printed book in Turkish – has an impressive pedigree. Built on the site of a Byzantine book and paper market, the Sahaflar sells books, both new and second-hand, of all sorts. It is a favourite haunt of students who come, mainly, to buy second-hand textbooks, of tourists, and of the generally curious on the lookout for ancient copies of the Koran or 1950s editions of Ambler, Greene and Amis classics.

  Many of the booksellers, it is said, are dervishes, Islamic mystics who practise musical and dance-based rituals in order to achieve spiritual enlightenment. Like mystics of all hues – like Maximillian Esterhazy – dervishes are usually very informed about the mysticisms of other faiths and are frequently well read. If, as İkmen hoped, Max was wont sometimes to purchase books from the Sahaflar, maybe he got into conversation with the learned vendors too. It would have been typical of him.

  The only problem İkmen had now was where to start. He knew a few of the men by sight, mainly through his friendship with Berekiah’s employer, Lazar Bey. But it was one thing to nod to a man occasionally and quite another to ask him about a foreign magician who was currently a missing person. After all, if he wanted to get anything useful out of these men, the heavy policeman stance wasn’t going to help him. So what position should he take?

  İkmen was just scanning his eyes across a pile of what looked like early twentieth-century religious texts when he noticed something very bright shimmer up in front of him.

  ‘Hello, Inspector.’

  The voice, which was dark brown, bordering on black, was as instantly familiar as the wild profusion of colours and jewels that were distributed across and around her body. Gonca the gypsy, smiling, put her cigar back into her mouth and reached out a large hand towards İkmen.

  ‘I enjoyed your daughter’s wedding enormously,’ she said. ‘Such a beautiful couple!’

  ‘Thank you,’ İkmen smiled. ‘You did a very good job, Gonca.’

  The gypsy shrugged. İkmen had employed her to read cards for the wedding guests which, together with champagne drinking, was a duty she had performed with plenty of enthusiasm. But Gonca was far more than just a card reader. She was a visual artist too, and one whose work, much of which incorporated magical themes, was greatly in demand amongst the chattering classes. Not needing to buy anything second-hand any more, she’d obviously come to the Sahaflar for her own amusement.

  ‘So what are you looking for today?’ Gonca said. ‘Some treatise maybe on the Kabbalistic symbolism of tarot?’ She smiled. ‘You know, your eldest daughter has a very natural relationship with symbolic . . .’

  ‘You are not the only person who thinks that my Çiçek is a talented young lady,’ İkmen said. ‘Can I buy you a glass of tea?’

  They went to the tea garden in Beyazıt Square. As usual, it was full of students as well as the odd peripatetic Eastern European selling trinkets from whatever ‘old country’ he or she came from.

  When they’d got their tea, İkmen said, ‘I came down here to speak to the book men about magical volumes.’

  ‘Then you came to the right place.’

  İkmen lit a cigarette and then cleared his throat. ‘Look, Gonca,’ he said, ‘I have a bit of a problem. A friend of mine has gone missing, a magician . . .’

  ‘Oh, that’s out of my league, I’m afraid, Inspector,’ she said. ‘Magicians are quite beyond the knowledge of a humble gypsy.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that if this friend of yours is a real magician there is no way someone like myself can help you. If he or she is missing then there is probably a very good reason for that – even if it is something you or I may never understand.’

  ‘Well, to be honest, I’m not talking to you because I think you might be able to help,’ İkmen said. ‘But on the basis that my friend may have used the Sahaflar in order to purchase books I thought I might engage one of the vendors in conversation . . .’

  ‘And, when you saw me, you thought that perhaps I may be able to help you find the right person,’ she smiled, and then turning a little to her left she pointed to a very small, bespectacled man sitting alone at a table underneath a tree. ‘İbrahim Dede specialises in esoteric texts,’ she said. ‘He is very learned.’

  İkmen apologised profusely for disturbing the old man’s leisure, but he just waved this away with one impatient hand. Any friend of Gonca Hanım was, he said with a serious expression on his face, a friend of his. Without actually naming him, İkmen described Max’s interests, his lifestyle and said, without going into detail, that he was missing. As it turned out İbrahim Dede didn’t need names to know exactly what İkmen was talking about.

  ‘Maximillian Esterhazy has purchased books from me for nearly thirty years,’ İbrahim Dede said, with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. ‘You know he studied under Rebbe Baruh?’

  ‘Who?’

  İbrahim Dede threw his hands up in surprise. ‘Rebbe Baruh! An unparalleled Kabbalist,’ he lowered his voice to a whisper, ‘a man whose eyes had looked upon the face of the Almighty! Maximillian has his knowledge and is therefore capable of most things.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ İkmen asked.

  ‘Kabbalists, real Kabbalists,’ Gonca said, ‘not stumbling amateurs like me, can do things that, to most people, would seem to be impossible.’

  ‘If Maximillian doesn’t want you to find him, then he will be able to disappear,’ the old man said. ‘He could very well still be in his apartment; he could even be watching us now.’

  İkmen instinctively turned round but there was no one except a group of the ubiquitous university students to be seen. ‘Yes, but why . . . ?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ İbrahim Dede shrugged. ‘Maybe he is working to restore the balance in this city. It has become very dark of late.’

  ‘Dark?’

  ‘Places of worship have been desecrated. You must know of this?’

  ‘I know of one,’ İkmen said. ‘I consulted Max about it. Are there others?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Ignorant and dangerous images fouling the light,’ he smiled. ‘These create a lack of balance between what you would call good and evil. I have observed similar phenomena several times over the years. They tend to occur at dangerous times, like now.’

  ‘You mean, I assume,’ İkmen said, ‘this conflict between Saddam Hussein and the Americans.’

  ‘Indeed. So many questions, so many threats. Does Saddam have these chemical weapons of which George Bush speaks? Does Iraq harbour terrorists? And, most importantly for us, which way is our government going to jump? Will we go to war too?’

  İkmen, for whom, through his soon-to-be-conscripted son, these concerns were very current, lowered his head. ‘But the image that I have seen,’ he said, ‘on a church – it was, so Max said, inaccurate.’

  ‘The Goat of Mendes is a powerful negative image,’ the old man said gravely. ‘Even if some renditions do possess too many organs of generation.’

  ‘You know . . .’

  ‘Of course I do! Foul images like that have been appearing for some
weeks. The forces of destruction are gathering in this city. I must, like any right-minded person, like Maximillian, do what I can to restore the balance.’

  İkmen, who was becoming a little tired of such oblique conversation, said, ‘Look, İbrahim Dede, I know that you mean well, but I need to find Max.’

  The old man shrugged. ‘I don’t know where he is, Inspector.’

  ‘Well, is there anywhere you think he might be? I mean, in order to counteract this “darkness” you speak of.’

  ‘There are many possibilities,’ İbrahim Dede said as he crossed his hands in front of himself on the table. ‘If he knows who is pouring this negativity into our city, then he may well be pursuing them. If he doesn’t then he may be enacting countermeasures.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Performing rituals designed to redress the natural order of things. Maximillian is a great lover of İstanbul.’ He looked across at Gonca. ‘Who knows? Maximillian is a Kabbalist, I am not.’

  ‘I don’t suppose this Rebbe Baruh is still alive, is he?’ İkmen asked.

  ‘No. Maximillian is, as far as I am aware, the only ritual magician in this city now.’

  ‘So what you’re saying is that finding him is going to be well-nigh impossible?’

  İbrahim Dede sighed. ‘I think that without some knowledge about Kabbalah you are going to find it difficult. To the outsider the Kabbalistic system of symbolic and numerical correspondences can seem impenetrable.’

  İkmen took Max’s address book out of his pocket and opened it up on the table. ‘You mean like this?’ he said.

  The old man peered down at the book through the lower half of his glasses. ‘I have no idea what this might mean,’ he said. ‘I am, as I’ve said before, no Kabbalist.’

  Gonca, who had been looking down at the book also, said, ‘Maybe you could try and call some of these numbers and see who you get.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve thought of that.’

  ‘This page, A,’ she said, ‘could be a lot of people called Ahmet, Ayşe, Abdullah.’