Before I could make up my mind, Hakim said, ‘First, Erden Abakay is my nephew. Do you have a family, Herr Kayankaya?’
I drank some more water. ‘I discovered that I had a half brother yesterday. Probably the result of some little adventure of my father’s.’
He didn’t even respond with that cross between a cough and a laugh, just twisted his mouth briefly as if at a presumptuous child.
‘Second: Erden didn’t kill the man, certainly not with a small, sharp instrument neatly driven between the ribs and into the heart. Maybe with a pistol, or he would have knocked his skull in. You know that as well as I do. And it is certainly not pleasing in the eyes of the Lord to pin a murder on an innocent man.’
‘Innocent is not the word I’d think of in connection with Abakay. Between ourselves, one of the girls he was offering was twelve at most — that shocks me more than the death of a punter who wanted to abuse a girl like that.’
‘How interesting. So you consider your own rules superior to those of the community at large. You know better what is right and what is wrong?’ This time there was genuine and slightly malicious satisfaction in his smile. ‘Someone like that is known as a fanatic, am I right? I’m sorry, Herr Kayankaya, but we are not talking about morality here. We are talking about established laws and a prison sentence lasting many years.’
‘I thought my claims would never stand up in court? Abakay will probably get off with a couple of years.’
‘Weak, very weak — that’s no way to argue a case. You don’t like my nephew, so you want to pin a murder on him, full stop.’
I didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say. The sheikh was right.
‘Furthermore, one can always have the bad luck to encounter a judge whose prejudices weigh more heavily than the facts. I know you would like to forget it, but to many of them we are just Turks.’
‘I don’t forget it, Sheikh, but I don’t base my actions on that principle. Do you know why you have to keep Abakay out of prison?’
‘As I said, because he is innocent and he is also my sister’s son.’
‘No, it’s because he’s blackmailing you. If you don’t get him out of there, he’ll send you and your drug deals sky-high.’
His mobile rang again. Hakim held it to his ear, listened for a while, then murmured something in Turkish, closed it and put it in his trouser pocket. Then he leaned towards me over the table, and said quietly, ‘Listen to me carefully: the situation has changed. We have a hostage. If you do not withdraw your statement against Erden by tomorrow evening, we shall begin cutting off parts of our hostage’s body: toes, fingers, ears and so on. If you tell the police, the hostage will disappear forever. Do you still have my number on your phone from my call yesterday?’
I heard myself replying, in a toneless voice, ‘Yes.’
‘Good. I shall wait for your call tomorrow. The police are sometimes rather slow. It could be a couple of days before Erden’s lawyers hear the news. But I trust you. If you assure me that you have done as I require, we will not injure the hostage, and as soon as Erden is released from custody our hostage will also go free. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, I understand. Who …?’
Ignoring my question, he turned away and got to his feet. After taking a thin, black raincoat off a hook, he came close to the table again, bent forward, looked gravely into my eyes and said, in a quiet but penetrating voice, ‘Read the Koran. Learn to forgive a brother like Erden. Learn to forgive yourself. There is nothing bad about being a Muslim, on the contrary. Be proud of yourself. Allah loves those who are happy.’ He smiled encouragingly at me. ‘I’ll expect to hear from you in the morning.’
I watched him go to the door and out into the street. As soon as he was out of sight I snatched my mobile from my bag and tapped in Slibulsky’s number with trembling fingers. The first thing I heard was the noise of the bar, then Slibulsky’s cheerful voice. ‘Hey, when are you joining us?’
‘Where’s Deborah?’
‘Hmm, wait a minute … Behind the bar, opening bottles. Want to speak to her?’
I slumped in my chair with relief. ‘No, no, that’s all right. Is anyone else at the table missing?’
‘No … the superstar author just went out with a girl, probably to feel her up, the horny prick.’
‘Oh, shit.’
‘Why? I’m glad. He’s been hitting on Lara, Deborah, Tugba, and then some girls at the next table, one after the other. Very uncomfortable. He wants to have it off with someone this evening and now he’s found that someone. Good for him.’
‘Can you please go out and see if he’s still around?’
A door opened and closed, the noise of the bar fell silent, then I heard Slibulsky again. ‘No, they must be looking for a corner somewhere.’
‘Okay. I’ll be with you in a minute.’
I put my mobile in my bag and signed to the waiter. ‘A double shot, schnapps, please!’
Chapter 13
‘I don’t know either, she was just suddenly standing at our table. Eighteen or nineteen, I’d say. Done up to the nines — moist lipstick, sexy hippie mini-dress, brightly coloured platform shoes and a book in her hand. By your Monsieur Don’t-I-Just-Love-Women.’
‘Did he say that?’
‘He said a lot of other shit like it.’ Slibulsky sighed. ‘Particularly when he’d had a drink.’
‘An alcoholic drink?’
‘Yes,’ said Deborah. She was standing behind the bar drying glasses. ‘Although he kept on telling us how he never really touches a drop of the stuff. But he could certainly put it back. Almost a whole bottle in half an hour. I bet he binge drinks every few months.’
Tugba cleared her throat. ‘And he seems to have loved no end of women. Turkish women, like me. Jewish women, like Deborah. Women who make jewellery, like Lara …’
‘But do women who make jewellery love him back?’ growled Benjamin, with his eyes half closed. ‘When he was asked to shut up for a bit he first looked insulted, then turned to the boutique dolls at the next table. “I just love clothes!” Okay, so I’m pretty toasted myself at the moment, but he was much, much worse.’
‘Yes, well,’ said Slibulsky, returning to the real subject. ‘And then Titty-Mouse was suddenly standing in front of him, making out she was a fan of his and asking him to sign her book. Of course he went off like a rocket. To be honest …’ Slibulsky cast a quick glance at the bench where Lara had fallen asleep. ‘If I’d written a book, and I suddenly had a fan like that standing in front of me — well, I can understand it’s a great moment in an author’s life.’
‘And her shoes alone,’ murmured Benjamin, his eyes now tightly closed. ‘With those flower stickers all over them — wow!’
‘Can we have our bill, please?’ called a man in the corner. He and the woman with him were the last guests in the bar.
An hour later Deborah and I were lying in bed. While I told her about the day’s events in rough outline, her eyes were closing, and by the time I finished I was sure she was asleep. But suddenly she said, with her eyes closed and her voice husky with wine, ‘What possessed you to pin the murder on him?’
And all of a sudden I had Sheikh Hakim in bed beside me.
I thought again about the moment when I’d got to work on Abakay’s chest with the knife. And of how I hadn’t just left it at assumptions when I was talking to Octavian, I’d claimed there was no alternative to Abakay as the murderer.
Finally I explained, ‘There was a sixteen-year-old girl in that barred and soundproofed room. She was shaking all over. She’d put her finger down her throat and smeared herself with her own vomit to keep a fat drunk from raping her. I’d rather not know how many girls’ lives Abakay has ruined like that, and I thought he never ought to get the chance to do it again.’
For a while Deborah didn’t react. Then she opened her eyes, turned to me and put a pillow under her head.
‘I hope you remember who you’re sharing your bed with? That’s the k
ind of thing that happens to tarts. Not all of them, but a great many. I was lucky, but I knew some girls who weren’t. And you yourself, you’ve only forgotten it. Today what happened to your client’s daughter seems to you like the worst of nightmares, but back then — don’t you remember how we would sit in some bar at five in the morning, finished, broke, drunk — just hoping for another customer, or not to get AIDS, or to find some fool ready to pay for a round of drinks? You, me, Tugba, Slibulsky, all the others. Some dead and buried long ago, others living in the West End. You’ve grown old, darling, old and soft, and that’s just fine — but you’ll call Octavian tomorrow and withdraw that stupid statement.’
I said nothing. I imagined Abakay’s sense of triumph.
‘Do you have any idea who the real murderer might be?’
Would he dare to turn up at the de Chavannes villa again?
‘I asked you a question.’
‘I don’t know,’ I replied absentmindedly.
‘Oh, come on, darling.’ She dug a finger into my stomach. ‘You’re only a little bit old and a little bit soft, and what’s more, you only live in the West End because of your ambitious girlfriend. Could you please put the light out now?’
Next morning I rang Octavian. It was Sunday, and he was having breakfast with some Romanian relatives.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said I’m withdrawing parts of my testimony. When I got into Abakay’s apartment I supposed, wrongly, that Abakay had killed Rönnthaler. Unfortunately I didn’t leave Abakay time to explain himself, but believing that I was in acute, life-threatening danger I overpowered him at once. Well, you know the rest — I tied him up and gagged him.’
‘You did … And how about the cuts on Abakay’s chest?’
‘No idea.’
There was a pause. I could hear Deborah squeezing oranges in the kitchen. Octavian’s agitated breathing came over the phone.
‘You realise this means we’ll have to let Abakay go free?’
‘He’s still a pimp and a drug dealer. It’s just that you don’t have me as a witness anymore.’
‘Oh, nonsense! Kayankaya, you really are such an idiot! How do I look now?’
‘Good luck, Octavian. That’s all I can say.’
‘Wait a minute! This will have consequences. People will make life hard for you, and it wouldn’t surprise me if you lose your licence.’
‘People? Or you?’
‘You can at least be sure I won’t lift a finger for you again!’
‘That’s a pity, when I was hoping for your support, my friend.’
‘Asshole!’
We hung up, and I called Sheikh Hakim.
‘I’ve withdrawn my statement.’
‘Excellent, Herr Kayankaya. The rest will be as we agreed.’
‘How’s the hostage?’
‘The hostage wants for nothing, don’t worry. You’ll be hearing from me. God be with you.’
For a change, I hoped so too.
At eleven I was supposed to be at the Book Fair with Rashid. According to his schedule, he was reading at eleven thirty with Ilona Lohs on the subject of losing your native land, under the heading ‘Sweet Homeland, Sore Hearts.’ According to the flyer for the reading, Ilona Lohs was born in the GDR, and her novel Moon Child, about eighteen-year-old Jenny Türmerin who wants to flee former East Germany, was based on autobiographical experiences. Malik Rashid — also according to the flyer — missed ‘the old, multi-cultural Morocco where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived side by side,’ and in his new novel Journey to the End of Days he described, ‘among other things, the consequences of increasing ethnic uniformity: the dumbing down and brutalisation of Moroccan society as a whole and the loss of imagination and dreams.’
I was nervous when I called Katja Lipschitz.
‘Good morning, Herr Kayankaya. Everything all right?’
In the background I heard what was now, even for me, the familiar roar of the Book Fair. All the sounds in the huge hall mingling into a single, metre-high, continuously rolling ocean wave.
‘I can’t call it that. Rashid has been abducted.’
‘What?!’
‘There obviously was something to those threatening letters and phone calls.’
‘Phone calls?’ She raised her voice. ‘There weren’t any phone calls! I was only saying so! And as for the letters … Oh, nonsense! For God’s sake! Are you sure he hasn’t simply gone off somewhere, met a woman, oh, I don’t know what …?!’
‘I’m sorry. The kidnappers called me.’
‘What are they asking?’
‘Nothing so far. But they told me the name of their group: The Ten Plagues.’
‘But … but that’s the exact title of Dr. Breitel’s speech!’
‘Well, maybe they read the Berliner Nachrichten, or Breitel found the name on the Internet in the course of his research.’
‘I can’t understand it, Herr Kayankaya! Not in my wildest dreams did I think that Malik would really … oh, poor man! I’m so sorry.’
‘You must keep calm now, Frau Lipschitz. Say that Rashid is sick, a bad sore throat or something like that. And whatever you do don’t call the police! I’ll do all I can to get him out of there as soon as possible.’
‘But I must tell our publisher. What will happen if they demand money? Or if they want us to pulp Rashid’s novel? Like the Rushdie case, do you remember?’
‘Wait before speaking to your publisher. I didn’t get the impression that the kidnappers were after money. They’re probably more interested in setting an example: see how we can scare you in the middle of your own country. A demonstration of power, if you see what I mean? Or to satisfy their vanity — with terrorists that’s usually the main motive. Maybe it can be settled with a simple press release giving the name of the group.’
‘I hope with all my heart that you’re right. But what am I to do now?’
‘As I said, announce that Rashid is sick and say no more. I’ll call you the moment I have any news.’
‘Do you know what? It’s those supposed men of God! I’ll pray for Rashid!’
‘That’s a good idea, Frau Lipschitz. You can’t do anything better. See you soon.’
Chapter 14
Abakay was released from custody on Wednesday. On Thursday I had a phone call from someone who worked for Sheikh Hakim.
‘Do you know the café in the little tower up in the Grüneburg Park, opposite the Korean Garden?’
‘Yes.’
‘You can pick up your man there this evening at ten.’
At nine thirty I was going along the path to the tower, among trees and shrubs. There was no one about in the light drizzle in the Grüneburg Park at this time of day. Once I smelled cigarette smoke, probably from someone sleeping rough under the bushes somewhere.
The little tower was dark, and dim light came only from the narrow street about fifteen metres away. Where there were café tables and chairs on the gravel during the day, only a solitary garbage bin covered with advertising for Langnese ice cream now stood in the gloomy night. I had two pistols with me: my official one, registered and in a back holster, and an unofficial, unregistered one — at least, not registered in my name — that I had picked up a couple of years before while searching the apartment of a crack-dealing banker.
I leaned against the little tower for a while, watching the forecourt in front of it, the bushes round it, the street and the entrance to the Korean Garden. Nothing was moving, and after a while I went over to the garbage bin and put the loaded gun that wasn’t registered in my name down under it. Just in case, and supposing God wasn’t with me after all.
For a moment I had thought of asking Slibulsky to come with me to cover my back if necessary. But for one thing I didn’t want to hear Lara bitching about it, and for another I didn’t think Sheikh Hakim would cheat on the deal. After all, so far as I could judge, he was not a cleric but a professional gangster. There was really only one possibility that worried me: that of Abakay be
nt on revenge.
‘… Kemal, you motherfucker! Come on out, you tramp! You bloody little sod! Come and get your shitty poet … Hey there!’
I assumed it was the same white delivery van that had been standing outside the wine bar on Saturday evening. Barely two minutes ago, Abakay had driven it with verve over the pavement and into the gravel forecourt. Now he was striding up and down with large, angry, slightly unsteady footsteps, hectically smoking a cigarette held in his left hand and shouting into the night. His right hand was in the side pocket of his leather jacket, and he was taking no trouble to conceal the fact that he was holding a pistol; the shape of the barrel stood out clearly.
‘… Where are you, Kemal? Got no balls, you cowardly bastard? Don’t you want your crybaby writer back anymore?’
I waited to see if anyone else got out of the van, but apparently Abakay wanted to settle accounts with me on his own. Rashid, I assumed, was tied and gagged in the back of the van.
Presumably he’d snorted a good amount of cocaine to get him into this belligerent mood. In a football match you’d have described him as over-motivated.
Finally I came out from the shadow of the little tower. My own right hand was also on the pistol in my jacket pocket.
‘Hello, Abakay. Those elegant expressions … anyone could tell at once that we have a fine, socially committed mind here. How’s the photography going?’
He stopped short, then with his jaw wide open and a dismissive gesture of his hand, exclaimed, ‘There you are, you pisser!’
‘Where’s Rashid?’
‘Where do you think? In the back of the van. So scared he’s shitting himself. What a stench!’
We were standing about ten metres apart. Abakay tossed his cigarette end into the gravel, swaying as he did so, and shouted, ‘Totally disgusting!’ and sniffed noisily. He seemed to be in a bad way; he had probably had a lot to drink with the coke, and I made the mistake of thinking I was both mentally and physically superior to him just because I was sober. Not even the pistol in his jacket really scared me. The barrel was pointing all over the place, but not at me. Abakay looked as if he might collapse at any moment.
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