The Mephisto Threat

by E. V. Seymour

  At Tallis’s approach, the man in charge turned, introduced himself as Captain Ertas.

  ‘You must be the Englishman.’ Dark eyes that appeared to miss nothing fastened onto Tallis. He suddenly realised the state he was in. In any other circumstances he’d have felt a prime suspect. ‘Why did you run away?’ Ertas said.

  ‘I didn’t. I gave chase,’ Tallis said evenly.

  ‘Lying dog,’ one of the uniformed officers said. Tallis understood every word, but resisted the temptation to either look at him or answer back. More valuable for them to believe he couldn’t speak the language.

  ‘I understand you were with the dead man,’ Ertas said, inclining his head towards Garry’s fallen form. Tallis noticed that Ertas spoke excellent English with an American accent. Probably one of the new, modern, ambitious brands of Turkish police officer that choose to study at the University of North Texas and get a criminology degree.

  ‘Yes,’ Tallis confirmed.

  Ertas stroked his jaw, said nothing for a moment. ‘Friend?’ Ertas enquired.

  ‘Acquaintance.’

  ‘He has a name?’

  ‘Garry Morello.’

  Ertas nodded again. He already knew, Tallis thought, just checking to see whether we’re singing from the same hymn sheet. He’d probably checked Morello’s pockets straight away and found his passport. Since a spate of terrorist attacks, aimed mostly at the police, it was obligatory to carry some form of identification, particularly in the city. ‘And you are?’

  ‘David Miller,’ Tallis said.

  ‘Passport?’

  Tallis unzipped the pocket of his trousers and handed it, freshly forged care of the British Security Service, to Ertas. Not that they needed to have gone to so much trouble. From what he’d heard it was pretty easy to fool the Identity and Passport Service. All you needed was a change of name by deed poll.

  ‘Your business here?’

  ‘Tourist,’ Tallis replied.

  ‘And what do you do when not a tourist?’

  ‘I’m an IT consultant.’

  Ertas said nothing.

  ‘I sell technology systems to the hotel and leisure industry,’ Tallis said smoothly.

  Ertas raised his eyebrow as if technology was a dirty word. This wasn’t quite going according to plan, Tallis thought. Everything he said seemed to rattle Ertas’s cage. Was it personal or had Ertas rowed with his wife that morning? Historically, the cops were poorly paid, lacked proper facilities and received contempt from the rest of the population. Tallis had thought this a thing of the past. Perhaps he was wrong.

  Ertas glanced at Tallis’s passport and read through the bogus list of destinations to which Tallis had ostensibly travelled. Tallis mentally ticked them off—Spain, Germany, Czech Republic, United States of America.

  ‘Look, I could really do with cleaning up.’

  ‘Of course,’ Ertas said, handing back the passport. ‘I will instruct one of my officers to fetch you clean clothes. You may use the facilities at the station. You have no objection to accompanying us, Mr Miller?’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘Your relationship with Mr Morello…’

  ‘A passing one.’ Christ, Tallis thought, this could get tricky. ‘We’d briefly met in London. Mr Morello is, was,’ he corrected himself, ‘a journalist.’

  ‘A crime correspondent,’ Ertas said with a penetrating look.

  Ertas didn’t get that off the passport, Tallis thought. ‘I believe so.’

  ‘So your friendship with him had no professional basis.’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Affedersiniz.’ Excuse me. It was the uniformed officer who’d made the jibe about Tallis being a lying dog. He was stick thin with the same sweating, sallow features Tallis had observed on smackheads. He was instantly reminded of a conversation he’d had with Asim, his current contact in MI5 and the guy he directly reported to. It was suspected that many Turkish drug gangs were protected by officialdom. Same old: heroin and money. Tons of it.

  ‘Evet?’ Yes? Ertas said impatiently.

  ‘The café owner.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He says he saw everything.’

  ‘Ve?’ And?

  ‘He says the bullet was meant for the Englishman,’ the police officer said. Eyes narrowed to slits, he looked straight at Tallis.

  2

  * * *

  WHY the hell would he say that? Tallis wanted to demand. Fortunately, Ertas asked the same question.

  ‘The dead man often frequented the café,’ the uniformed officer replied. ‘He was well known, respected.’

  ‘Even respected men are killed,’ Ertas said, with irritation. ‘Besides, if Morello routinely visited the café, he was an easy target.’

  ‘He says,’ the officer said, jerking his head in the direction of the café owner, ‘that Miller’s reaction was so swift, he must have known the bullet was meant for him.’

  Balls, Tallis thought contemptuously as he was hustled into a waiting police car. He simply possessed excellent reflexes and training. But he could hardly mention that to the police.

  The Grand Bazaar nearby had its own mosque, bank and police station, but Tallis was taken to Istanbul Police Headquarters. Tallis hoped it wasn’t the next target for a suicide bomber. Not that long ago, police stations had become a terrorist’s dream location.

  If there was air-conditioning, it wasn’t switched on. The overwhelming noise came from a flurry of flies buzzing around, either copulating or beating the shit out of each other. It was so hot inside, Tallis thought the concrete walls might crack and explode. At first he was forced to wade his way through several impenetrable layers of administration, lots of hanging around, lots of giving the same information, lots of meeting the tired gaze of disinterested clerks who smoked like troopers. He noticed that his fellow witnesses were detained elsewhere. Lucky them, he thought.

  In bureaucratic limbo, he had ample time to consider his position. As traumatic as the sudden turn of events was, it didn’t need to jeopardise his cover. To come clean would only confuse and complicate the issue. Besides, he really didn’t want Asim alerted to the mess he was in. Wouldn’t look very suave on a first outing with his new handler, especially as it might be construed as treading on the Secret Intelligence Service.

  As for the café owner’s remark, he reckoned the man had it all wrong. Tallis had witnessed the hit for himself, seen it coming. At no time had he been afraid for his own personal safety. It had been more a diffuse fear of being caught in someone else’s crossfire. Which brought him back to Morello. Who would want him killed? Sure, as a crime correspondent Garry mixed in muddy circles, but he was British, for God’s sake, and British journalists didn’t usually get themselves slotted—unlike their Russian and Turkish counterparts. So, whomever he’d pissed off, or whatever it was he’d stumbled across that meant his life was worth extinguishing, it had to be big.

  Ertas turned up an hour and a half after Tallis’s arrival. ‘So sorry to keep you. Much to do,’ he said, rolling his eyes.

  ‘Have you contacted Mr Morello’s wife?’ Tallis said, his stomach lurching. It was a second marriage for Gayle. She’d lost her first husband in a car accident. What a lousy hand of cards she’d been dealt, Tallis thought grimly.

  ‘Next of kin have been informed,’ Ertas said in businesslike fashion. ‘Everything to your satisfaction?’ he added, eyeing the clean shirt Tallis was wearing. It wasn’t. The shirt was a half collar size too small.

  ‘Fine.’

  Ertas suggested coffee, an invitation which Tallis gratefully accepted. After giving the order to a junior officer, Ertas took Tallis down the corridor and into an area the size of a doctor’s consulting room. It was cooler in here. The fan actually seemed to work, rather than simply rearranging warm air. There were two chairs either side of a large desk upon which rested a telephone and a number of buff manila folders. In the corner were several filing cabinets.

  Closing the door behind them, Ert
as indicated for Tallis to sit down. Tallis noticed that Ertas was wearing a ring, a thick gold band inlaid with tiny precious stones. Although jewellery, particularly gold, was sold in abundance at the Grand Bazaar, with only a tiny charge for craftsmanship, it seemed like a strange affectation for such a seemingly precise and ordered man.

  ‘Before we begin,’ Tallis said, ‘I’d like some legal representation.’ He might know the form in Britain but here he was boxing in the dark.

  ‘Not necessary, I assure you.’

  ‘Then I’d like to contact my embassy.’

  ‘We can arrange this for you.’ Ertas smiled politely. He picked up a phone and, with a flourish, asked to be put through to the British Consulate. Tallis listened in as Ertas explained the situation. As far as he could deduce from Ertas’s side of the conversation, someone was on their way.

  The coffee arrived in traditional Turkish coffee cups. Both men took their time stirring in sugar. Tasted good, Tallis thought, taking a sip. Black and strong, it was a hell of an improvement on West Midlands cop coffee. Ertas spent several seconds surveying Tallis and Tallis spent several seconds looking at him. ‘For a man who has suffered a terrible experience, you seem very relaxed, Mr Miller.’

  ‘Probably shock. I haven’t had time to process it.’ Which was true. He’d witnessed men die in battle, seen the grotesque dance of bodies hit by machine-gun fire. He’d coldly observed the messy aftermath of suicide by shotgun, and the remains of turf wars played out on busy Birmingham streets, yet Garry’s death fell into none of those categories. Unexpected, cruel and apparently without motive, it felt strangely and horribly similar to Belle’s. The only difference: Garry had been a friend, Belle a lover. Tallis gave an involuntary shudder. He should be falling apart, he guessed, but he was too empty to feel anything right now.

  ‘And do you normally play Rambo?’ Ertas enquired.

  Cheeky bastard, Tallis thought. About time Ertas got up to speed on current American heroes. At least he could have chosen someone nearer his age. Sly must be almost double it. He gave a lazy shrug. ‘Can’t say I’ve ever been put in that position before.’

  Ertas leaned back in his seat. ‘We are trying to establish Mr Morello’s movements before he went to the Byzantine.’ ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘He said nothing?’

  ‘We’d hardly had time to exchange much more than a greeting,’ Tallis said.

  ‘You don’t think he was followed?’

  ‘And the hit team tipped off?’

  Ertas smiled. ‘You use dramatic language.’

  ‘Killers, then.’ Tallis briefly returned the smile. ‘If he was, I know nothing about it. He certainly didn’t suggest to me that he was being followed.’ Garry probably wouldn’t have known. He had been too preoccupied, Tallis remembered.

  ‘And how did he seem?’

  Restless. ‘Hot.’

  ‘Troubled?’

  ‘By the heat, yes.’ He was playing hardball with the guy. He knew it. Ertas knew it. But, then, Ertas knew a lot more than he was letting on, Tallis sensed. We’re both playing masters in the art of deception.

  ‘We have witnesses who appear to think that you were the intended victim.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  Ertas smiled again. ‘You are very direct, Mr Miller.’

  ‘My apologies.’

  ‘Not at all. I like a man who is straight with me.’

  Ditto, Tallis thought, meeting Ertas’s smile with one of his own.

  ‘So you really think the other witnesses were mistaken?’ Ertas pressed.

  ‘Others?’ He’d thought only the café owner had expressed a view. Careful, he reminded himself, you’re not supposed to understand the language.

  ‘Does it make a difference how many?’

  ‘Not particularly. Like I said, they’re wrong. In the heat of the moment, it’s quite easy to draw flawed conclusions.’ Tallis could have given Ertas a lecture on perceptual distortion, the firearms officer’s nightmare. What the brain couldn’t process, it made up. Wasn’t lying, simply the mind’s natural inclination to join the dots and fill in the blanks. It often explained discrepancies in witness accounts.

  ‘I’d like you to run through everything that happened,’ Ertas stated, ‘from the time you were seated in the café to the final tragic event.’

  Tallis did. Ertas listened. He interrupted only once. ‘You say the gun was a Walther. How do you know?’

  Damn, Tallis thought. No way could he bluff this one. Only way to go: tell Ertas the truth. ‘It has a very distinctive finger-extension on the bottom of the magazine, giving a better grip for the hand.’

  ‘I didn’t know IT consultants were so well versed in firearms.’ Ertas’s dark eyes lasered into Tallis’s.

  ‘I served in the British army as a youngster.’ It wasn’t a very compelling explanation. The most he’d learned in the army about weapons had been directly connected to theatres of war—SA80s, 30 mm Rarden cannon and 7.62 mm Hughes chain guns—but Ertas gave the impression of accepting his account.

  ‘And the motorcyclists—did you see their faces?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Think they were men?’

  Tallis hesitated. The individual riding the bike had certainly seemed too big and broad to be a woman, but judging by half the female population of the United Kingdom you simply never knew. The pillion passenger had been much smaller and could have been of either sex. He told Ertas this. Then something else flashed through his brain. Maybe he was mistaken. Maybe he imagined it. Surely not, he thought.

  ‘And which way did they go?’ Ertas said, breaking into Tallis’s thoughts.

  ‘Heading for the bridge.’

  Ertas asked Tallis to repeat the conversation he’d shared with Morello. Tallis gave an edited account. He wasn’t going to mention Kevin Napier or the Serious and Organised Crime Agency. As far as Ertas was concerned, he and Morello had been two Brits who’d happened to run into each other, chums passing the time of day. Happened all the time.

  ‘Did Mr Morello have any enemies?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know but, I guess, in his line of work you can’t rule anything out.’ Tallis remembered the mezeeating Russians. Garry had written a book. Had he pissed someone off? He floated the idea. Ertas seemed to file the information away. Again, Tallis had the sensation that Ertas knew something he didn’t.

  ‘Whose idea was it to meet at the Byzantine?’

  ‘Mr Morello’s.’

  ‘Did you know it’s a hangout for the criminal fraternity?’

  ‘I didn’t, no.’ So that was it, Tallis thought. Made perfect sense. The cops had already got a line going there. Probably explained why Ertas was so suspicious of him and how the police had got there so quickly. ‘Perhaps there lies your answer.’

  Ertas gave him a slow-eyed response. ‘A line of enquiry to follow, certainly. I noticed from your passport that you have spent almost three weeks here.’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘In Istanbul?’

  ‘No.’ Tallis told Ertas about his sailing trip on the gulet and then his week of resort-hopping via taxi to Marmaris and Bodrum and finally the coach ride to Ephesus, one of the greatest ruined cities in the Western world. Images of colonnaded marble streets, intense heat and dust, the threefloored library with its secret passage to the brothel, and the Gate of Hercules, which formed the entrance to Curetes Street, flashed through Tallis’s mind. Everywhere there’d been reminders of Ephesus’s past. It was reputed that if the city’s torches were not lit, Ephesus was in peril.

  ‘And when are you planning to return?’

  When I’ve got what I came for, Tallis thought. ‘Not made my mind up yet.’

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Bir saniye lutfen.’ Just a moment, please, Ertas said, getting up. ‘So you say you’ve been in the city here for the past week?’

  He was really labouring the time factor, Tallis thought. He guessed Ertas appreciated accuracy so he gave it to him.


  ‘Five days.’

  ‘Five days,’ Ertas repeated. ‘Where are you staying?’ Ertas asked, opening the door.

  ‘The Celal Sultan Hotel.’

  The skinny police officer with the sallow, sweating features was standing on the threshold. He handed Ertas a note. Ertas took it, thanked the man, closed the door and, thoughtfulness in his expression, sat back down. ‘We will not be releasing the details of this afternoon’s incident,’ he told Tallis. What he meant, Tallis thought, was that they would not be releasing the identity of the victim. If it was suspected that Garry had been the wrong target, the police didn’t want the killers coming back for a second crack at it. Probably a sensible precaution, or…

  Something inside him buckled. What if he was wrong? What if someone had got it in for him? He immediately discounted his current connection with Asim, his MI5 handler, as a factor—all he’d done was keep his ear to the ground, visit certain places, clock faces, all low-key. He was playing the original grey man—most intelligence gathering was mundane, quiet and unassuming. He’d done nothing to stir up that kind of violent response, but it was perfectly conceivable that others from his past might bear him a grudge.

  ‘Are you all right, Mr Miller?’