Deadly Web

by Barbara Nadel

  The pilot moved the launch forward as slowly as his low-revving engine would allow. İkmen, his body as well as his eyes now straining over the starboard bow, experienced a slowly creeping feeling that was distinctly unpleasant. Maybe it was due to the girl’s hair, which was blonde and which flew behind her in a wild, almost joyous tangle? But then lots of girls had blonde hair – there was nothing odd in that. The pilot edged as close as he dare without attracting obvious attention. İkmen screwed up his eyes to take in the girl’s voluminous hippy-style dress and then with dread he let his gaze drop down towards her feet.

  ‘Alison.’

  ‘All right, I know it can’t possibly be her, not in reality,’ İkmen hissed. ‘Alison’s got to be fortysomething now – that is, if she’s still alive! But . . .’

  ‘I don’t understand why anyone would get a girl to look like a hippy you met in the nineteen seventies!’ Süleyman whispered in return. ‘Why would anyone . . . ?’

  ‘Max. Max would.’

  ‘But why?’ Süleyman asked. ‘She was a friend, you met her, it was a long time ago.’

  ‘She went missing! She was full of life and she went missing!’

  ‘But why would Max . . . ?’

  ‘Because,’ a light touch on his arm caused Süleyman to turn and look down into the eyes of Gonca the gypsy, ‘maybe there is some history between İkmen and this girl and the magician.’

  ‘Well, of course there’s a history!’ İkmen spat. ‘We both knew her!’

  ‘And you both desired her,’ Gonca smiled. ‘You at least, İkmen. I can see it written in your face.’

  Süleyman, who, like the rest of the world, believed that İkmen had never so much as looked at another woman, regarded him closely.

  İkmen sighed. ‘Nothing ever happened. Alison was just a good friend and I, I controlled myself,’ he said wearily. ‘I can’t speak for Max.’

  ‘But if the magician uses her to taunt you then he knows that you still feel,’ Gonca said. ‘It is, in you, a weakness he may exploit.’

  ‘But how do you know it’s this Alison or meant to be her?’ Süleyman asked.

  İkmen drew him back to the side of the launch and pointed. ‘Army boots,’ he said. ‘Pink. Alison painted them herself.’

  ‘But Doc Marten boots can be bought in many colours now.’

  ‘No!’ İkmen hissed. ‘Army boots. Look at them! Huge! They were Alison’s favourite thing; she loved them.’

  And when he looked, Süleyman did indeed see what İkmen meant.

  ‘So what do we do now then, Çetin?’ he said. ‘Assuming that Max is on that boat with that girl?’

  ‘We hold back,’ İkmen said, ‘until we can see what is happening.’

  ‘And if Max or someone else attacks the girl?’

  ‘We hold back.’

  And then he fell silent, his eyes pinned upon the small bright figure dancing in the middle of the Bosphorus.

  It seemed like she danced for hours. On and on it went – the girl alone and seemingly performing to no external sound. But strangely, given her slight form and flowing hair, it wasn’t graceful. There was something off centre about it, maybe an element of drunkenness or the influence of drugs. Had the officers been able to see her face, maybe they would have been able to tell, but she was still a long way off and her hair was frequently over her features. Karataş and Yıldız, still on the shore at Kandilli, had been informed about this development and, for the moment, were staying where they were.

  ‘You don’t think that this performance could be some sort of distraction, do you, sir?’ Çöktin whispered to a grave-faced İkmen.

  ‘I don’t know,’ İkmen said. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, someone must have sailed the boat out here,’ Süleyman said. ‘I can’t see her doing it, can you?’

  ‘No.’

  And so they watched and continued to wait. Only Gonca failed to display any outward signs of impatience. Maybe, İkmen thought, her poise stemmed from the accumulated experience of her people. Maybe that was what being ‘other’ taught a person: to wait – for food, for justice, perhaps even for a glimmer of understanding. She’d wait a long time. Unlike other groups of outsiders, gypsies were not either integrating or being welcomed into society. Oh, İstanbul was better in most respects, certainly than some of the Central European cities – but the gypsies still remained ‘outside’ and probably always would do. And maybe, from their point of view, with good reason. His father, who had taught modern languages at İstanbul University, had always been very interested in European history, particularly the Second World War period. İkmen still remembered what he’d said about Hitler’s Final Solution as applied to the gypsies. ‘You know, boy,’ Timur İkmen had said one day, ‘I used to wonder how the Nazis could think so little of the Jews. But at least the bastards killed them. But the gypsies? They weren’t even flesh to the Nazis. Made them dig their own mass graves and then pushed them in. Buried them alive and then stamped on the earth above their heads. How does a people recover from something like that?’ He’d swallowed hard after that little speech, choking back tears. And Timur hadn’t even liked gypsies!

  Idly, but in a slightly horrified fashion, İkmen began to wonder if Max’s father had ever taken part in such appalling acts. If he had there was no way, surely, that even a son could countenance such a thing. Even a son would, for his own sanity if nothing else, have to distance himself from such a father. Unless, of course, that father had money. Cash changed things – cash made men film little girls dying amid strange rites and offered rich, idle minds a plethora of interests, both good and evil.

  The girl suddenly stopped dancing and what looked like two men emerged from below deck. One tall, one of medium height, they both wore long robes, their faces obscured by what appeared to be masks. The smaller of the two carried something – possibly a table – that he set down at the back of the vessel. Gonca, now roused from her reverie, came to join İkmen and the others at the side of the launch. Squinting into the darkness, she said, ‘I don’t know why we can’t use binoculars.’

  ‘Because the light might catch the lenses,’ İkmen said. ‘What can you see?’

  ‘Not much.’

  The taller of the two men approached the table and laid something down upon it. Then he began to talk. None of the occupants of the launch could hear what he said, but that he bowed four times in four separate directions was, Gonca said, significant.

  ‘He’s acknowledging the four portals,’ she said. ‘North, south, east and west. He’s not performing the rite to open them because they are already open.’

  ‘So what now?’

  ‘So whatever ritual he wishes to perform in the centre of the circle,’ the gypsy replied. ‘But on that table there will be a ritual dagger, I can tell you that without even seeing it. In the old days it was used to perform ritual sacrifice, now it is just symbolic – most of the time.’

  İkmen looked across at the now motionless girl and then said to Süleyman, ‘Tell the pilot to take us in.’

  ‘But don’t you want to catch him in the process . . . ?’

  ‘I don’t think that we dare wait that long,’ İkmen replied.

  ‘Very wise,’ the gypsy muttered. ‘I think.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ İkmen said.

  As the boat’s engines kicked into life Gonca sat down on the deck and lit one of her black cigars. ‘Because I don’t know what happens if you interrupt a magician during a grand ritual,’ she said. ‘Allah alone knows what forces he’s already conjured. İnşallah, we will be able to control them when the time arrives.’

  The tall man in the fishing boat turned towards the launch as its engines began to propel it forward.

  İkmen had wondered whether the fishing boat would try to outrun the launch when the occupants saw it coming. But they didn’t. The shorter man did, or so it seemed, toy with the idea of flinging himself into the Bosphorus but, in all probability, stories about the unpredictability of the waterway�
�s currents prevented him from doing so. The tall man was, however, another matter. Until the launch came alongside he just stood, absolutely static, only moving to take the girl gently in his arms when the officers and the gypsy began to board.

  İkmen knew it was Max. In spite of the long grey robes and the sinister goat-horned mask, he just knew. The girl, her face turned in towards the man’s chest, just whimpered.

  ‘What are you doing, Max?’ İkmen asked as he watched the familiar eyes move uneasily behind the mask. ‘I didn’t think this was your style.’

  ‘I am practising my craft,’ the magician replied in the English that was more comfortable for him. ‘There’s no law—’

  ‘Sorcery is still officially outlawed in this country,’ İkmen replied in kind. ‘Now please, Max, take the mask off and let’s have an end to all this.’

  The girl moaned a little now, which resulted in the magician tightening his grip upon her.

  ‘But my ritual is incomplete. Forces have been invoked that now require just one more ceremony in order to achieve our ambitions.’

  ‘Our ambitions?’

  ‘I’m doing this for you.’ The normally jovial English voice had taken on an altogether harsher tone. ‘I’m protecting the city. It’s a big job.’

  ‘Protecting the city from what?’

  ‘From war. From gas attack, from chemicals, from the ghastliness of ethnic cleansing. I’ve dedicated my life to working for peace.’

  İkmen, in spite of himself, laughed. ‘You think that Saddam Hussein would ethnically cleanse the Turks?’

  ‘It can happen.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I know we must all be vigilant,’ İkmen said. ‘But if you are trying to deal with your personal guilt through our misfortune, then it will not work, Max. This city does not need your help. We have an army, we have intelligence agencies, we are not the aboriginals I think you would like us to be.’

  ‘I love this city! Why do you think I’m doing this?’

  ‘Doing what?’

  In the silence that followed, the girl, encircled by the magician’s arms, began actively to struggle. She made noises too. Both the look of her and the sounds she was making were disturbing. Had she, İkmen thought grimly, been Max’s intended victim? Was she to be sacrificed by the dagger that Gonca had said must be on that table – but wasn’t. İkmen couldn’t see it and, with the smaller man now positioned between Süleyman and Çöktin with his hands in plain sight, if it was anywhere it had to be with the magician. One limp girlish hand beat the magician’s chest without too much volition.

  ‘Who’s the girl?’ İkmen said as he lit up a cigarette and began to puff furiously.

  ‘You know who she is.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ İkmen responded sharply. ‘The hair is a wig, even I can see that now. Why have you made this girl look like Alison, Max? Is it to taunt me? If you knew that I was coming then why did you not attempt to evade me?’

  ‘You may or may not have come. Your presence is irrelevant. She’s Alison—’

  ‘No she is not!’

  ‘You know her.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘All women are Alison, in the end,’ the magician said. ‘You know her.’

  ‘No, Max, no I don’t,’ İkmen said. He looked across at Süleyman who, he noticed, was standing with his hand inside his jacket. Silently İkmen prayed that he wouldn’t act impulsively. This was, after all, Max Esterhazy, their friend.

  ‘I think you’ll find you do know her,’ the magician said as he turned the girl around to face İkmen. ‘There.’

  Her face was slack as if she were drunk, and her eyes were almost totally closed. But for all that, she was instantly recognisable. İkmen, beyond words, drew in one long, unsteady breath. Çiçek.

  ‘A working designed to raise power to cover a city demands only the finest sacrifices,’ the magician said. ‘Çiçek has all the right qualities. She is a natural adept, she is beautiful . . .’

  ‘Then it seems a great pity to waste her.’ Gonca the gypsy, her black cigar still between her fingers, smiled. ‘You took a gypsy’s blood, out on Büyükada, did you not?’

  The magician, whose command of Turkish was good, nevertheless paused. Gonca’s accent was thick and so he had to concentrate hard to understand her.

  ‘Gülizar was a little whore,’ Gonca said. ‘Your ritual is tainted.’

  ‘Give me my daughter, Max.’ İkmen, now that the shock of seeing Çiçek in this situation had started to abate, spoke in a low, controlled voice.

  But the magician just ignored him and continued his conversation with the gypsy. ‘The Büyükada girl was not my first choice,’ he said. ‘Fitnat Topal failed to turn up.’

  ‘So, as I said, your ritual is tainted.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Max, if you give Çiçek to me, I swear I will—’

  ‘Cut me a deal, as they say on American television shows?’ The magician removed his mask for the first time to reveal a strained and greying countenance. Somehow he looked older, suddenly. ‘I shot one of your colleagues, Çetin,’ he said. ‘If I hadn’t, young Çiçek wouldn’t be here now.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that foolishly I forgot one vital piece of equipment when I left my home on Tuesday . . .’

  ‘That sigil,’ Gonca said. ‘You use it to control the girl?’

  ‘Yes.’ He looked back at İkmen. ‘That’s clever – how did you know that?’

  But İkmen didn’t answer him. ‘You put another one in my constable’s pocket today.’

  The magician, just very vaguely, smiled. ‘Yes, but that was just by way of a joke,’ he said. ‘The one I prepared for Çiçek was serious. I used my own blood in its preparation.’

  The fact that Çiçek was staring at him, apparently without recognition, while all of this was going on, only added to İkmen’s fear. Even if he did get her back, would she be herself? Would anyone ever be able to rouse her from this fugue? He looked across at Süleyman and Çöktin, and the masked man who stood, breathing heavily, between them.

  ‘Who’s that?’ İkmen said, flicking his head in the direction of the small, tense group.

  ‘It’s Turgut,’ Max replied simply. ‘Ülkü’s boyfriend.’

  Süleyman ripped the mask from the young man’s face. He was very white and he was obviously terrified.

  ‘But you’re keeping me from what I have to do,’ Max said, and he reached inside his robes. Something shiny glittered into the night.

  ‘It’s all about money, isn’t it?’ İkmen said as his thin chest rose and fell in time to his now laboured breathing. ‘You sold yourself to İrfan Şay, you prostituted your art—’

  ‘Çetin—’

  ‘Your father’s money stopped and so you looked around for other ways to support your lifestyle. You don’t care about the city, Max! You care about yourself! But now it’s over. You cannot escape. The ritual is at an end.’

  The magician raised the long, curved knife up over his head and said, ‘Oh, but it isn’t, Çetin. It can’t be. The portals are open and those who I have called to protect İstanbul must be rewarded.’

  İkmen looked across at Süleyman, who had now taken his pistol out of its holster and was aiming it at the magician’s head. ‘Put the knife down, Max,’ he said. ‘I will kill you if I have to.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ the magician replied, and then he raised his other arm, freeing Çiçek as he did so. Slowly, or so it seemed, she sank down his long body towards the floor.

  ‘But virgin blood has to be shed,’ Max said, and then he looked up at his upraised arms and smiled.

  Everything happened very quickly then. İkmen dived forward to drag Çiçek towards him, while Süleyman, battling against the bilious movement of the boat, attempted to reach the magician. Max Esterhazy brought the arm carrying the knife back and then sliced it at his other upraised arm. The wrist and hand flew off into the Bosphorus and suddenly they were all plunged into a world of blood.

  H
e was over the side before any of them could even draw breath.

  ‘Get him!’ İkmen yelled as he folded himself protectively around his insensible daughter.

  Süleyman threw his jacket to the deck and plunged in after the magician. The pilot of the launch turned his searchlight on so that it illuminated the water around the boat. Çöktin flung the still trembling Turgut Can to the deck and stood over him, his pistol at his head. Only Gonca moved in a dignified fashion as she slowly bent down to touch the blood on the deck boards and then lift a small drop up to her mouth. After apparently tasting, she raised her eyebrows and then leaned against the side of the boat to look at what was happening in the water.

  Süleyman, aware of what the currents could do to only adequate swimmers like himself, kept one eye firmly on the boat as he searched the waters. Max, surely, couldn’t have got far. He had dived into the space behind where he thought the magician had fallen. But at the moment there was nothing to show either where he’d been or where he was. But then, having sustained such massive injury, it was logical to assume that he must have gone down. Süleyman took in a large gulp of air and dived beneath the surface.

  ‘He’s extremely athletic, isn’t he?’ Gonca said appreciatively as she once again relit her cigar. ‘I like that.’

  ‘How you can think about anything at a time like this is beyond me!’ İkmen said. ‘Come, for the love of Allah, and help me with my daughter!’

  Gonca turned and made her way over to İkmen and the unconscious girl.

  ‘İkmen, there is always time for lust,’ she said as she took Çiçek’s head in her hands and slowly massaged her face. ‘Your girl will be all right.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘As I never stop telling you, İkmen, I’m a gypsy, I know everything.’

  ‘Yes, Max is a magician and look where it’s got him!’ he snapped.

  Çöktin, anxious at the length of time Süleyman had spent in the water, handed his gun to the pilot and leaned over the side of the boat. ‘Sir!’

  But no answer came from the now almost stilled water.

  ‘Inspector Süleyman!’

  ‘He made me do it!’ Turgut Can said through teeth now gritted against the night-time cold. ‘I don’t know where that blood came from, I swear!’