Süleyman, slumped back into one of Şay’s armchairs, said, ‘Can you make out any of the other “actors” in the drama?’
‘They’re all wearing masks, sir,’ Çöktin replied. ‘Look.’
And he replayed the tape from the beginning. There were three other robed and masked figures in the film. Whatever Max had said about ‘entities taking the girls’ the tall one had to be him – but the others? If they believed Turgut Can then he wasn’t one of them and so the others were a mystery. Şay would, of course, be involved either as a participant or as the cameraman. But who were the others? Süleyman watched as the tall figure produced either a metal dildo or a large metal sheath from the parted folds of his cloak. The other two bent the girl forwards to allow him to enter her. She screamed. But that didn’t stop him thrusting hard into her, strange, unknowable words issuing from behind his mask as he did so. It was only when they’d finished watching the tape that they became aware of Emir Şay’s presence just inside the French windows. His eyes were genuinely wounded and his face was very pale.
‘Did my father have anything to do with that?’ he asked. ‘Is that why you’re here?’
Süleyman sighed. ‘We think, sir, that your father may have had some involvement with the production of these videos.’
‘Did they really stab that girl?’
‘Yes, sir, I’m afraid—’
‘Allah.’ Emir Şay sank down into the nearest chair and put his hand to his chest. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘If I had known about this . . .’ He looked up into Süleyman’s face. ‘Inspector, I’m sorry but I lied to you yesterday when I told you my father was out. He told me to – he told me you’d come because of unpaid taxes. After you left he went.’
‘Where?’
‘I honestly do not know,’ Emir said. ‘I was just glad that he’d gone.’
Süleyman sat down opposite the young man and lit a cigarette.
‘My father and I don’t get on,’ Emir said. ‘I’m grateful to him – he bought me a good education. But we are very different people and when he fills the house with whores I just can’t stand it. You know my mother still lives in Edirne? He visits her once a year if she’s lucky.’
‘You don’t think he would have gone there?’
‘No. Inspector, that video, who would want such a thing? It’s revolting.’
‘You’d be surprised what some people will pay for, Mr Şay,’ Süleyman replied wearily. ‘You know, in America they call them “snuff movies”, tapes of people really being killed.’
‘A certain type of person gets sexually aroused by such things,’ Çöktin put in.
‘Mr Şay,’ Süleyman said, ‘do you know of an Englishman called Maximillian Esterhazy?’
‘Max?’ Emir smiled. ‘Yes, he’s just been with us for a few days. He’s a very intelligent and witty man – I like him. Although quite what he finds to talk about to my father and his ghastly friends, I have no idea. You know, when Max is around, my father stops buying whores? I think he’s a good influence.’
Süleyman looked across at Çöktin, whose face remained static. Back in Şay’s office, more boxes of tapes plus some amateurish and extremely unpleasant magazines were being removed.
Constable Gün placed one of the boxes down on the floor in front of Çöktin and said, ‘There are some outbuildings in the garden, Sergeant. Do you want us to—’
‘Search wherever you like. My father has a dark room out there, so who knows what you may find?’ Emir Şay said, and then he covered his face with his hands and appeared, just briefly, to weep. ‘How could he? Twisted, unnatural man!’ And then, as Gün left, he looked up sharply. ‘You know who I blame for this? Ali and Christoph.’
‘Friends of your father?’
‘Ali Saka is my father’s accountant. Christoph Bauer is just a . . . he does something up at the German Hospital. He is German or Swiss or something.’
‘Did either of these men also know Maximillian Esterhazy?’ Süleyman asked.
‘Dad met Max through Christoph,’ Emir replied. ‘I don’t know how. Max is a very spiritual man – he knows a lot about the dervishes. All Christoph ever seemed to want to do was get drunk and fuck prostitutes. I can’t imagine how he and Max became friends, but they are.’
Çöktin, who had been taking note of the men’s names, said, ‘Do you know where these men live?’
‘Ali lives, I think, in Kadiköy, but I don’t know about Christoph. You’ll find their numbers in my father’s diary.’
Çöktin went into the office to search for it.
Emir Şay looked briefly out of the French windows at the shining Bosphorus water and then said, ‘You can’t imagine how it feels to discover something like this.’ He looked now at Süleyman. ‘I mean, I knew my father was no saint, but this . . . How could he? How could he dishonour me, my mother and himself in such a way?’
‘For money.’
‘But he has money! More than enough!’ And then he sighed. ‘You know, I think if it’s OK, that I might phone Max Esterhazy now. He’s a very sympathetic friend.’
Süleyman shook his head sadly before he launched into as much as he could tell the young man about Max and his possible involvement with his father’s business. When he had finished, Emir sank back into his chair and this time he wept quite openly.
‘When those close to you betray you,’ Süleyman said, ‘it is very hard to bear.’ And, he thought silently to himself, I should know. Max had, after all, been his friend too – in a way, if one could count as friend one who never shared the truth of his life with one. But then if he had, would Süleyman have wanted to be friends with him, the son of a Nazi, one, further, in receipt of Nazi money? Now he would never know. Max was dead, even if his body could not currently be located. Those morons at the station had probably messed up, knowing them. No doubt Max was in some cell somewhere, forgotten and by now probably smelling too.
‘Sir . . .’
It was Gün in from the garden.
‘Yes?’
‘Sir, I think you need to come outside.’
‘What have you found?’ Emir Şay, suddenly roused from his weeping, rose to his feet. ‘Not more filth, surely?’
‘No, sir.’ Gün looked at Süleyman. ‘Sir?’
Süleyman rose to his feet and, followed by Emir Şay, he made his way towards the back door. However, as he drew level with Gün, the constable stopped him and whispered, ‘Not the young man, sir.’
‘Ah.’
‘What?’ Emir threw his hands up and shrugged.
‘Let me just go with the constable and then I’ll get back to you, Mr Şay,’ Süleyman said.
‘Yes, but—’
‘I’m not asking you, Mr Şay,’ Süleyman said sternly. ‘Please wait here. I will return momentarily.’
And so Emir Şay remained. He sat down and while several uniformed men systematically took his father’s office apart, he looked at the now blank television screen that had all too recently shattered his world.
İkmen couldn’t sleep. He’d tried. But what with his son Sınan returning from the hospital with Çiçek, not to mention Fatma’s tearful reunion with her daughter, there hadn’t been much peace to be had. Then when Mr Gören and Mr Emin got going about the unfortunate Halide again, that just about finished him off. Arming himself only with two packets of cigarettes, İkmen set off into the backstreets of Sultanahmet, down into Cağaloğlu and across into the warren of tiny streets that surrounded the Kapılı Çarşısı. This area was, for him, a place of both safety and anonymity. Teeming with all manner of life – human, feline, canine, birds – even the occasional pony – there was always something to look at and, if one could stay still for long enough, enjoy. You could buy almost anything in this area – cheaply produced pots and pans, electrical goods of variable quality, leather in every form and shade imaginable. His cousin, in fact, the transsexual Samsun, lived with her leather dealer lover not two minutes from where he was now. But he didn’t want to go and see Sams
un now. She was there if he needed her, but for the moment, he just wanted to smoke, walk and try to make some sense of what Max had done to him – to all of them. He pushed past a couple of fat babushkas, women from the former Soviet Union filling their black bin sacks with cheaply purchased children’s clothes, and found a vacant piece of wall against which to lean in order to light his cigarette.
Max had liked this area. He’d once said that he considered it one of the most truly Turkish districts of the city – whatever that had meant. In light of what was now known about him, it had probably meant that the place was chaotic and in places less than sanitary. But, at the time, İkmen had taken it to mean that it was lively and interesting. He pushed himself away from the wall and began his wanderings again. But no, that was unfair, Max had loved İstanbul – indeed, at least part of the motivation behind that crazy ceremony of his had been to protect the city. It had been arrogant and paternalistic but also deeply affecting too. Where was Max now? Although he knew it was stupid, İkmen couldn’t think of him in the past tense. He had been pronounced dead by their own doctor and, indeed, Süleyman had known that he was dead when he was trying to revive him. But Max was a magician – Max was someone who could create the illusion of cutting off his own hand – Max was someone who could, seemingly, appear and disappear at will. Could he, was it possible for him to fake his own death too? Just the thought of it produced a deep sense of paranoia and as İkmen unwittingly entered the Sahaflar, he could almost feel unseen, mocking eyes upon him.
İbrahim Dede was sitting outside his shop enjoying the sunshine. And as a troubled-looking İkmen passed, he called over to him.
‘Çetin Bey!’
Almost, but not quite lost inside his own head, İkmen looked up and frowned.
‘Come, join me for tea,’ the dervish said. ‘You have the look of a man in need of conversation.’
And so İkmen went over to join him. After asking one of the young boys who worked for him to bring them both tea, İbrahim Dede took İkmen through to his little office at the back of the shop and sat down. As İkmen sat in front of him he noticed that the small cubicle was decorated with many drawings of tall, graceful dervishes, their skirts swirling about their ankles, turning in the sema or ritual dance. He hadn’t intended to come here, even though he knew that Max and the dervish had been friends, but now that he was, he felt it only right that he share what he knew with the old man. After all, dervishes were spiritual people, traditionally accepting of the foibles of flawed humanity – and he knew also, because he trusted his instincts, that İbrahim Dede would not repeat anything that he told him. So İkmen began and some time later, he stopped.
When he had finished, İbrahim Dede crossed his arms in front of him on the table and shook his head sadly. ‘Poor Maximillian.’
‘Poor Maximillian! What about those poor children?’
‘Such a lot of talent and good intentions,’ he said. ‘But perverted by the three-fold evils of money, envy and guilt.’ He sighed. ‘I, like you, didn’t know about his past. But whether he took his father’s money or not, his tainted lineage troubled him. I know this because Maximillian was a good man and only good men are so troubled.’
‘He killed people, İbrahim Dede,’ İkmen said softly. ‘He encouraged a boy to take his own life and he killed three girls himself.’
‘Or rather the entities he conjured did,’ İbrahim Dede said.
‘That’s what Max said, yes,’ İkmen replied. ‘He first assaulted them with a metal penis, “the Devil’s” own, apparently, and then he killed them. But it was Max himself in—’
‘Reality?’ the dervish put in. ‘What is that, Çetin Bey? If a devil or a djinn takes possession of a magician in a ceremony and if that magician becomes that devil or that djinn, then who performs the ceremony? The man or the entity?’
‘We call that madness, İbrahim Dede.’
‘The police do, yes,’ he said. ‘But you are a little different to your colleagues, aren’t you?’ He smiled. ‘If you were not, then Maximillian would not have felt so wounded that you bettered him in love.’
‘I didn’t even know that I had!’
The dervish raised a hand. ‘Immaterial,’ he said. ‘Maximillian liked and respected you and so the girl’s preference for you hurt him. In addition, as we have said, love İstanbul as he did, he was only comfortable here when he could feel superior to us. His ritual, as well as saving the city, was also designed to prove that we needed looking after and that he was the only person capable of doing that. This girl you speak of, by expressing her preference for you, undermined his sense of himself as a good person.’
‘Mmm.’
‘And as for the trickery? Well, you know that a lot of those we call magicians and prophets are also conjurors too. There are lamas in Tibet who can go without food for many months and survive; there are fellows of mine who can reduce their own earthly desires to such an extent that they appear almost dead.’
‘Almost dead,’ İkmen said, ‘yes. But Max was completely dead. Our doctor confirmed it.’
İbrahim Dede shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I was not there. All I can tell you is that I do not know, myself, where Maximillian might be. Gonca the gypsy I have seen, however.’
In the midst of everything that had happened, İkmen had almost forgotten about Gonca. She had, he recalled, slipped away just after they’d reached the station.
‘And?’
‘And she is essentially a good woman. But a gypsy girl did die for this ceremony of protection Maximillian created.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying nothing,’ İbrahim Dede replied. ‘I give you only the facts; it is for you to make your conclusions.’
İkmen sighed. ‘So what did Gonca tell you?’
‘If I am to keep your confidences, then I must also keep hers,’ İbrahim Dede said sternly.
‘Ah.’
Then the dervish smiled. ‘She told me nothing you have not done,’ he said more gently now. ‘You know that she of all of you could see that Maximillian had not really sliced off his hand. But then she knows a trick or two herself and so maybe she was expecting the illusion. Gonca felt that something was wrong in the city a long time ago – before all this, before the foul images on the places of worship.’
‘We still don’t know who did those,’ İkmen said.
‘No.’ He looked up. ‘You should thank the gypsy, Çetin Bey. You should give her something she desires.’
İkmen, who instantly recalled Gonca’s amused suggestion that he offer himself to her, also remembered that she had, thankfully, then declined his services. But then maybe whatever İbrahim Dede had in mind was of a rather more spiritual nature.
The old man finished the small amount of tea in his glass that had long since grown cold and said, ‘Whatever the truth of what has happened to Maximillian might be, do not waste time pursuing him or even his corpse now. His ceremony is at an end – in spite of you and your fellows. And in victory he has proved himself the better man – in his own eyes. The girl’s rejection was assuaged in that final act of self-sacrifice, whether it was real or imagined.’
‘Society needs to exact punishment, İbrahim Dede.’
‘Indeed, and you will, I believe, discover those who were acting with Maximillian, who exploited his need for money. But Maximillian himself?’ He smiled. ‘He is beyond your power now. Let him go.’
İkmen sat in silence for a while and then he said, ‘You know, I feel so guilty. That so much of this was about me.’
‘Put that from your mind,’ the dervish said. ‘Please, Çetin Bey. After all, have we not seen what guilt can do to a man already this day?’
İkmen stared up at the images that looked down at him from every wall. Men whirling through space, eyes closed as they experienced the ecstasy of union with the divine. Free from desires, worries – even guilt. Though not a religious person, İkmen did appreciate the essential truths behind great faith and he took what he saw as a s
ign that perhaps he should do what İbrahim Dede suggested. And so he bowed down to kiss the old man’s hand in recognition of both his wisdom and his own agreement with what had been said. The old man, well aware of what this meant, smiled.
The corpse of İrfan Şay, his head destroyed by a bullet from the gun at his side, had been a grisly and disturbing sight. His poor son, Emir, had just collapsed. To discover that one’s father is, at best, an accessory to murder is one thing, and one does, naturally, express anger at that parent. But to then find that he has committed suicide is still a cause for grief. Şay, for all his faults, was still Emir’s father and he had once loved him.
Şay’s two confederates had been quickly tracked down after that and were both now in custody. Bauer wasn’t saying anything although Ali Saka had started whining, in the car back to the station, about how İrfan Şay had made him take part in his film-making against his will.
‘It is all down to Bauer,’ he said, referring to his German so-called friend. ‘He encouraged İrfan. He works in that hospital, yes, but his real passion is pornography. He knows how much these death movies can make. He knows people, ask him! And the Englishman – ask him too! Sick, the both of them, with their infidel ceremonies!’
‘Which you took part in,’ Çöktin had reminded him smartly.
‘Only because İrfan made me,’ Saka replied. ‘I never provided the victims nor killed anyone. Bauer used to steal blood from the hospital to make the scenes even more gory. How bad is that! I was just a cameraman, unwilling and, well, trapped really.’
Saka had been quiet since then and, when they reached the station, he demanded to see his advocate. Tomorrow, Süleyman thought, as he wearily made his way over to his car, was going to be another exhausting day. So much involved in this case! So complicated – like, he imagined, one of Max’s rituals.
He crossed the car park with his head down and so the sound of someone’s voice as he reached his car came as a shock.
‘Hello, Inspector.’
He looked up to see Gonca, resplendent this time in green and gold, leaning against his car, smoking one of her thin, black cigars.
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