Petrified

by Barbara Nadel

  Çöktin frowned.

  ‘We, or rather Christians,’ Sarkissian said with a smile, ‘believe that when Christ comes again to redeem the world the dead will rise from their graves. Embalming keeps them in a condition to render this possible.’

  ‘Yes, but surely if they’re in the ground,’ Çöktin began, ‘with all the worms and the bugs . . .’

  ‘Oh, it’s far more of a tradition and a cosmetic exercise than a practicality,’ the doctor said as he looked down at the corpse, ‘in most cases.’

  Yıldız, who was once again experiencing an unpleasant feeling, shuddered.

  Sarkissian took the dead man’s head in his hands and moved it gently to one side.

  ‘But not this one,’ he said gravely. ‘This one is different.’

  ‘What do you mean, Doctor?’ Çöktin asked. ‘Different in what way?’

  ‘This one, I believe, has been subjected to a far more sophisticated version of the embalmer’s art.’ He moved the head again. ‘It has movement, suppleness and it is as far as I can see only just now starting to degrade.’ He looked up sharply. ‘What I mean is that he is almost totally preserved, even down to the remnants of the tumour that killed him. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  They all stood in silence for a few moments until the doctor, suddenly mindful of the unknown man’s dignity, covered his head and shoulders with the sheet once again.

  ‘But he died naturally?’ Çöktin said as soon as the three of them started to move away from the corpse.

  ‘Yes,’ Sarkissian replied, ‘cancer. Nothing I can see of a suspicious nature – except, of course, the fact that I can’t even guess at when he died.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Sarkissian stopped and then leaned against one of his long steel benches.

  ‘Because I think this body might have been what morticians call maintained,’ he said and then, in response to the policemen’s confused expressions he added, ‘This man’s body is, if you like, in a state similar to that of Lenin in his mausoleum in Moscow. Maintained – I think – to keep it looking fresh. I’ve found some evidence of the skin having been treated with an emollient, but I’ve got to take advice on this, and so I’ve left a message for Yiannis Livadanios, who is an undertaker.’

  ‘And so this Mr Livadanios—’

  ‘Will be able to tell me whether my assumption is correct and also who might be performing this task.’ Sarkissian made his way out of the laboratory and back into his office. ‘Yiannis employs embalmers himself. And so if one of them is keeping the young man fresh, he will presumably know who our mystery man is, which will allow you, Sergeant, to bring this bizarre affair to an end.’

  The doctor sat down behind his desk, offering seats to the two policemen as he did so.

  ‘Mrs Keyder’s body can now be removed,’ he said, ‘provided there is someone to do that.’

  ‘There is a sister-in-law we now know lives out at Sarıyer,’ Çöktin replied. ‘I sent Constable Roditi out there first thing this morning but apparently, so her neighbours say, Miss Keyder is away at the moment and isn’t due back home until tomorrow. They don’t know where she is.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I’ve also been in contact with the Argentine Consulate, although what that might yield I don’t know,’ Çöktin sighed.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Rosita Keyder changed her nationality back in the fifties. The Consulate didn’t know of her. I’m hoping that her sister-in-law will be able to tell us what her maiden name was so that we can at least give the Argentines some sort of lead. It will, unfortunately, Doctor, take some time.’

  Sarkissian shrugged. ‘Oh, well,’ he said, sinking comfortably back into the grim humour so common to those in his profession, ‘she at least won’t need embalming while she’s in my refrigerator.’

  ‘No . . .’

  Constable Yıldız, who had, up until this time, been really very quiet, spoke.

  ‘But, Doctor,’ he said, ‘what I don’t understand is why this old woman had that man’s body in her apartment.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ Sarkissian replied. ‘I haven’t a clue.’

  After that the three of them sat in silence for a few moments as some of the implications of what they had been discussing began to sink in.

  It wasn’t the extent so much as the blatancy of their wealth that so sickened him. The men, Russians, Chechens, Azerbaijanis, all dressed in the ‘mobster’ uniform – leather jackets, whatever the weather, and far, far too much gold. Their bottle-blonde women, in their ill-fitting designer dresses and, again, mountains of gold, complemented them perfectly. When, Mehmet Suleyman wondered as he strolled between the closely packed booths that made up the central area of the Grand Bazaar, the İç Bedesten, had this become ‘normal’?

  There had always been gangsters in the city, there always would be. But the disintegration of the old Soviet Union had unleashed what seemed to be a flood of totally amoral people on to the streets. Instead of concentrating on just one or two ‘businesses’, for example, drugs and prostitution, these men did everything – including contract killing. Without feelings or conscience, they pleasured themselves with drugs, hard-faced women and with spending their considerable fortunes. They were doing that now, in the İç Bedesten, where the most precious items of jewellery, both modern and antique, were sold.

  As he threaded his way through the knots of tourists that gathered around every glittering, antique-stacked window, Suleyman was careful to keep Rostov, two of his heavies and the small dark Central Asian-looking man that accompanied them at a distance. Although he and Rostov had never actually met, Suleyman knew that the gangster, one of whose women was the lovely Masha, knew him. Rostov was not the first and certainly wouldn’t be the last mobster to ‘buy’ one of Suleyman’s colleagues. Indeed, it was still less than a year ago that Çetin İkmen’s former deputy, Orhan Tepe, had fallen for the promises of Zhivkov the Bulgarian. Tepe had paid for that mistake with his life.

  Whilst watching to see what Rostov did and where he went, Suleyman found that his eyes were drawn to the booths of the İç Bedesten. Ottoman military medals, inscribed in the old Arabic script few could now decipher, sat next to fabulous examples of art deco jewellery from the nineteen thirties. One booth even had a crown, a small one admittedly, which, so Suleyman felt, had to be made from paste rather than real jewels – but it had probably been a treasure to the family that once owned it. Such a thing would be meaningless to a person like Rostov, who would just buy it to sell on. Ostensibly an antiques dealer, Rostov knew as much about history as Suleyman did about childbirth.

  But then Suleyman knew that he had a personal interest in what happened in this particular part of the bazaar. His father, Muhammed, frequently sold things to the dealers in the İç Bedesten – when he couldn’t pay a utility bill or when he had a suit made that he couldn’t afford. Muhammed Suleyman or ‘Prince’ Muhammed, as some called him, came from an aristocratic family related to the Ottoman sultans. His two sons both worked and regarded themselves as ordinary men, but the old prince still lived an entirely other kind of life. Even though his palace on the Bosphorus had been sold many years before, Muhammed’s existence was punctuated by dinners at expensive restaurants, bespoke suits and quality cars. Now devoid of money and too old to work, he supported himself and his wife by selling off what remained of his inheritance. It was why Mehmet tried not to look too closely at their wares for fear of recognising some of them.

  Why Rostov couldn’t buy the ordinary glittery baubles they sold on Kuyumcular Caddesi, Suleyman didn’t know. The type of customer he attracted wouldn’t know the difference. Perhaps someone had told Rostov that Ottoman antique goods were now in vogue. Perhaps he’d even worked it out for himself. He was obviously a clever man – he had to be because he was still walking free. Even with, possibly, police ‘protection’, knowing what he was involved with, that was quite a feat.

  Rostov had just disappeared into a booth specialising in ar
t nouveau jewellery when Masha appeared at Suleyman’s elbow.

  ‘If you meet me tonight, I’ll give you the information you need,’ she said.

  She looked quite small and ordinary in daylight and, in this very public place devoid of dark and squalid corners, he felt nothing for her. Perhaps it was just simply the glamour of the forbidden that attracted him. Maybe like some of his more debauched ancestors he possessed an overwhelming curiosity about how the ‘lower orders’ conducted themselves during sex. Perhaps that was why, in the past, he had felt the need, briefly, to take a mistress.

  ‘You know that Rostov is here, don’t you?’ he said as he looked quickly at the booth into which the Russian had disappeared.

  ‘Yes. He’s buying jewellery.’

  ‘For whom?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. To sell. Maybe for his men. He gave Vladimir a gold and diamond ring. He’s very generous to his men – sometimes.’

  ‘But not his women?’

  Masha shrugged, glanced at the booth and then said, ‘So? Tonight?’

  Suleyman took his cigarettes out of his pocket and lit up. ‘Only if the information is good.’

  ‘It is!’

  Her face, pleading, looked desperate. Someone had obviously promised her a lot of money to set him up like this.

  ‘Where and when?’

  ‘Tonight, after eleven o’clock. I work at a pavyon on Camekan Sokak. All Russian konsomatris,’ she smiled. ‘Turkish punters, you see, they like that.’

  Unbeknown to Masha, Suleyman knew the area around Camekan Sokak intimately. After his separation from his first wife, Zuleika, he’d spent several years renting a room in the district known as Karaköy from his old colleague Balthazar Cohen. Pavyons, like the one Masha worked in, and gazinos, places dedicated to the twin vices of drinking and leering, were what the district was famous for – that and the rather more honest brothels or genelev. Men went to gazinos and pavyons in order, they hoped, to have sex, but they were required to pay a lot of money for drinks offered to them by the konsomatris or ‘hostesses’ first. Russian bosses, like Rostov, were known to be very active in the pavyon business. In Suleyman’s opinion these places were more insidious and corrupt than regular brothels.

  ‘How will I find this place?’

  He knew better than to ask the name of the establishment – places like this didn’t have names.

  ‘It’s in the basement of a Turkish genelev.’ She wrinkled up her nose as she said the word ‘Turkish’. Like a lot of Russian girls she felt herself to be far superior to the often quite naïve Anatolian girls the state-run and legal Turkish brothels employed. ‘The doorman has long blond hair and there’s a string of red and green lights around the door. You can’t miss it.’

  ‘So what do I do?’

  Masha smiled. ‘Leave that to me,’ she said lasciviously. ‘I’ll take care of you.’

  ‘I just want the information.’

  ‘Yes, and you’ll get it,’ she said. ‘We will get Rostov. Trust me.’

  And then she walked away. Suleyman looked back towards the booth where Rostov was, presumably, still involved in buying, and then walked over to it. It was empty. Somewhere during the course of his conversation with Masha, Rostov had slipped away. All of this was so obviously a set-up and yet he had to see it through just in case something useful could be gleaned from it. That or sex with Masha . . .

  Suleyman shuddered. No. No, that couldn’t and wouldn’t happen. He’d have to share this with either İkmen or Metin İskender – he’d have to get support, another pair of eyes to watch what he and those around him at the pavyon did. Now, suddenly, set-up or no set-up, here was a chance possibly to call Rostov’s bluff. Using himself as bait there was just a chance that he could get close enough to the operation to work out what, over and above Masha’s ‘stories’, was really going on. What did Rostov want of him or want him to do? The only problem was that his boss, Commissioner Ardiç, was unlikely to sanction such a dangerous move. Suleyman was already in far further than the commissioner knew about or would approve. Using informants like Masha was notoriously risky, which was why İkmen and İskender and only they could know. The three of them had, after all, committed themselves to making sure that no one ever became powerful enough to take over where Zhivkov had finished. But Rostov was getting there. He had to be stopped.

  In the meantime, however, if he was going to go to a pavyon and look like a proper punter he’d have to go to a cash dispenser and get some money. Masha, whatever her motivation might be, would want him to pay for his drinks. And if a very distressed American who’d recently been stung in this way was to be believed, it could cost him several hundred dollars.

  In spite of his very long and quite grey beard, the monk wasn’t by any means an elderly man. With his unlined and very blue eyes, he was probably, İkmen thought, fifty at the most.

  ‘You’re sure you saw this vehicle on Friday night,’ İkmen said.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ the monk replied, ‘definitely. It’s stuck in my mind because I’ve never seen these gates open before.’ He looked up at the tall and ancient metal gates he and İkmen were standing in front of. ‘Some of these old Jewish places have such lovely gardens,’ the monk continued, ‘and what with this one being the residence of Melih Akdeniz, I looked in.’

  ‘Which was when you saw the blue van.’

  ‘Yes. The engine was running, quite smoky as if it wasn’t very well maintained. The smoke meant that I couldn’t really see anything of the garden and so I just walked on.’

  İkmen offered the monk a cigarette, which he took with a smile.

  ‘So what time was this, Brother Constantine?’

  The monk looked up into the cloudless blue sky and pursed his lips. ‘It had to have been nearly midnight,’ he said. ‘I’d been visiting my sister – she lives down near the Daphnis Hotel. She made me some dinner and then we talked; she’s just got divorced and is very unhappy. After that I left.’

  ‘You work at the High School?’ İkmen said as he tipped his head towards the large red-brick building at the top of the street.

  ‘Yes,’ Brother Constantine answered. ‘Over twenty years now.’

  ‘So are you acquainted with Mr Akdeniz in any capacity?’

  ‘No,’ Brother Constantine frowned, ‘Mr Akdeniz is something of a recluse and has been for many years, I believe. The children are nice, polite little ones.’ He shrugged. ‘But then to be honest with you, Inspector, I would never have sought Mr Akdeniz out. I know he’s our most famous and controversial artist, but his stuff isn’t for me. I like to look at a picture and know what I’m seeing.’

  İkmen laughed. ‘You and I concur there, sir,’ he said. ‘I’m sure Mr Akdeniz is very clever, but . . .’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Their conversation was briefly interrupted by the sight of Melih Akdeniz dragging what looked like a bolt of cloth out of his kitchen and into the garden. It was obviously giving him some considerable trouble because he puffed and gasped as he moved.

  When he saw the policeman and the monk framed in the open gateway to his property, the artist put the cloth down and stood up straight, hands on hips.

  ‘What does he want?’ he called across to İkmen, pointing rudely at the monk.

  ‘I’ll tell you in a minute, sir,’ İkmen replied.

  ‘I don’t like Christians,’ Melih said. ‘Fucking torturers!’

  İkmen turned to face the artist full on. ‘I told you I’d speak to you in a minute – sir,’ he said acidly. ‘At the moment I’m talking to this gentleman, who has never, as far as I’m aware, tortured anyone.’ He turned back to Brother Constantine and smiled. ‘I apologise for him,’ he said. ‘Now would you be willing to make a written statement about what you saw last Friday?’

  ‘Yes, naturally,’ the monk said and then, smiling, he continued, ‘You know it is said that Mr Akdeniz’s family were originally Jews. They came here from Spain and Portugal because they suffered the most appalling perse
cution at the hands of Christians in those countries.’

  ‘Yes,’ İkmen said, still with one eye on Melih Akdeniz, ‘but that was all a very long time ago. People should move on. These old enmities do nobody any good. We’re all guilty of it from time to time, but we shouldn’t do it.’ And then moving forward a little to see Akdeniz more easily he said, ‘What is he doing?’

  The monk narrowed his eyes. ‘I don’t know.’

  They both watched as the artist, sweating heavily in the intense midday heat, strung what appeared to be a huge canvas across the entire width of the garden.

  Ayşe Farsakoǧlu took the ferry back to the city from Sarıyer. It fitted the sort of day she’d had: slow and fruitless.

  The local constabulary had been friendly and welcoming, and had quizzed her at some length about the ‘excitement’ she must experience working in the city. But with regard to information on the missing Akdeniz children they hadn’t been any help. As usual the district was quiet and ordered, and everyone obeyed the law from behind their very tasteful front doors.

  ‘This is a fishing village,’ one of the younger constables, called Said, had remarked. ‘People concentrate only on the catch. İnşallah it will always be so.’

  ‘We also have the rich folks,’ an older colleague put in, adding darkly, ‘some of whom are foreigners these days.’

  Ayşe had asked what sort of foreigners the district tended to attract.

  ‘Oh, those with a lot of money,’ the older man, Rifat, had said, ‘mostly from up there.’ He tilted his head northwards, which Ayşe interpreted as from somewhere in the old Soviet Union.

  ‘But they don’t cause any trouble?’ Ayşe had said.

  ‘Not as yet,’ Rifat had replied, ‘and it’s not up to me to worry myself about where they might have got their money from. You need a lot to buy one of the old yalıs these days, but then that’s their affair. Provided they don’t start having their gang wars here or parading their Natashas in our streets . . .’

  It was ridiculous to think that the wealthier mobsters wouldn’t reach a place like Sarıyer. As soon as they made enough cash they left places such as Beyazıt and Beyoǧlu in favour of one or other of the villages. And although they still conducted their business in the city, with their swarms of prostitutes – the Natashas – and their various drug and human traffic cartels, they didn’t seem keen to sully their own hearths. Hence the police in Sarıyer, Yeniköy and other smart Bosphorus villages had little trouble with them. Ayşe had, however, taken a list of these people’s names from the local cops to show to İkmen. It was probably a waste of time like the rest of her trip. There was no reason to think, as yet, that the children had been taken by mobsters. They always demanded money, and so far no one had contacted the artist, much less asked him for money. But it had been a very pleasant day in spite of her lack of success. Wandering around very attractive fish restaurants asking about whether Melih Akdeniz was known there had been hot but enjoyable work. Everyone she asked knew of him, but no one knew him personally. Not that Akdeniz had ever said he and his family ate in Sarıyer often. All he’d actually said was that his children liked fish, and that they had planned to go out to Sarıyer on that particular occasion.