And then the party round the fire went quiet. Iris put away her iPad and Pembe gave out marshmallows in silence. Ömer had told Peri she should leave the park, but she couldn’t. Word had come from on high that the police were not going to hold off for much longer. When it came, the attack would be bad. Not quite along the lines of the Winter Palace massacre of 1905 but it wouldn’t be easy. Peri thought – as Ömer had asked her to – of her parents. If she got killed or even injured, they would be distraught. And they were far too old for that.
She contemplated leaving, for her parents’ sake, but time passed, marshmallows were eaten, the fire died down and eventually she found herself going to sleep beside Pembe. The dry Gezi grass underneath her body was strangely comfortable.
Hakkı brought her food, a small bowl of moussaka that joined the uneaten börek on her bedside table. He looked at the cold pastry and said, ‘You must eat.’
She looked into his eyes. Yiannis had said she knew something and Hakkı was aware that starving herself was the only weapon she had left. And she knew that he feared it.
‘What have you done?’ she said.
‘Nothing.’
She looked into his eyes again. Speaking was so tiring. She knew he understood her eyes and what lay behind them.
‘There is nothing for you to worry about,’ he said.
He made to go. Her mouth moved without sound. Then it came. ‘You . . . killed,’ she said. There was a long pause. He started walking. ‘Again.’
Hakkı stopped.
‘Again.’
His eyes darted around, sliding over her face, but they didn’t rest anywhere. ‘No.’
‘Yes.’ She switched to Greek. She hadn’t done that for decades. But it was appropriate and she saw Hakkı shudder.
‘Now,’ she said, counting on her shaking fingers, ‘the girl . . . 1955 . . .’
He put a hand out to steady himself against the end of the bed. She’d never, ever said the name of that year to him before. Never.
‘I had no choice.’
‘You . . . you stop,’ she said.
His face was usually pale but now it was grey. It frightened her. She wondered whether she should go on.
He said nothing. Could he speak?
‘I am ordering . . .’
‘I can’t,’ he said. Holding on to the bed, he knelt down beside her. ‘We are at risk again, Madam. These people, now, they’re like . . .’ he stopped.
He couldn’t say it and so she said it for him. ‘’Fifty-five. You saved . . . me.’
‘Yes, I saved you.’ His hands kneaded her ancient fraying counterpane.
She put a hand on his head. Over the years she’d wondered if he’d thought she was dead when he’d lifted her out of that devils’ orgy on İstiklal Caddesi. He had definitely thought she was unconscious. But one eye had been open, just a crack. She’d seen his tears as he’d looked into her face. She stroked his hair.
He took her withered hand and kissed it. Although he was almost as old as she, his eyes were clear, which gave her a sure and uncommon view of the passion that he always hid from everyone except the two of them.
She couldn’t say the words. But in her head she knew that finally the time had come for her to move on. She had never thought that she would.
Eventually she said, ‘It . . . must . . . stop.’
He cried. All the time he looked away from her saying, ‘No! No! No! No!’
And she wondered whether after all these decades he was going to finally defy her. And the thought of it made her want to take her own life.
If he managed to reach the water, the cavity was so narrow he risked spilling it over himself or, even more frighteningly, the candle. He’d had to pee three times and so there was already liquid on the floor. It, and he, stank. Eventually he’d need to defecate. He didn’t dare think about that.
The old man, may God curse him, couldn’t have done this to him on his own. Negroponte had to have helped him. They’d tricked him and he hadn’t even had the wit to see it coming. He’d so wanted to believe the old man, he’d completely blinded himself to the truth. Why would Hakkı betray the Negropontes after so many years of faithful service? What he’d done for the old woman in 1955 had to have bound him to her forever. To betray her would negate his entire existence. Ahmet had that from his father and so it had to be true.
But he’d so wanted to get into that room. There had been stories when he’d been a child. His grandfather had seen it and had described it to his father as a marvel. A blood-red room where dynasties were born, where those who had once ruled the city performed their rites of succession – where those that remained could perform them again.
Ahmet hit one of his red prison walls with his fist. Blood ran down his knuckles. He winced, stuck his fist in his mouth and choked back tears. The salty taste of blood made him want to gag. Was it a sin to drink one’s own body fluids?
He’d been careful not to put the blood he’d collected underneath his fingernails from Yiannis Negroponte’s hand anywhere near his mouth. Were the results of the DNA test he’d had performed on that sample back? Would he ever know?
His instinct told Ahmet that he should hammer on the walls, but his mind told him it was pointless. In hour after hour of stuffy silence he hadn’t once heard anything from outside the tiny chamber. And where was he in the room? He didn’t remember any small cavities like this when he’d first stepped into the Red Room all those years ago. There had just been wonder, horror and awe, plus a feeling of being in a place of great evil.
Now he was going to die in it and he knew that however hard he shouted, however loudly he screamed, there was nothing he could do to change that. He hadn’t eaten for many hours and he’d left his house without his insulin. He’d fit, lose his mind and then die in a coma. Ahmet knew that scenario backwards.
Chapter 23
Gonca pulled him out of bed by his hair.
‘My family are being slaughtered!’ she screamed.
He hit the cold early morning floor with first his naked side, then his head.
‘What?’
Dressed in a transparent black chiffon kaftan, Gonca shouted through her thick grey hair. ‘You, the police, in Gezi Park! My father says you’re firing on the people! Get up!’
He sat up. Looking around the bedroom lit by the harsh neon light she favoured, he felt disorientated.
‘Get up! Get up!’
She threw a dress on over the kaftan and began to lift him to his feet.
Her family were all at Gezi Park, protesting and, no doubt, doing a bit of business too. Commissioner Teker had said that the government wouldn’t let them do it forever. He pulled his clothes on. He didn’t know what he could do.
‘How do you know? What happened?’
‘My father called,’ she said. ‘You, the police—’
‘Will you stop—’
‘Well you are the police, aren’t you?’
He said nothing.
‘You, the police, said that you were just going to clear Taksim for traffic. Then suddenly there’s Molotov cocktails in the air!’
‘From—’
‘Oh, from the fucking police, of course! Provoking! Then plastic bullets! Now who knows what!’
She picked up a bag and stuffed a packet of 200 cigarettes inside. ‘Come on!’
He’d only just put his shoes on when she pulled him out of her bedroom door and into the garden.
Not even food could distract her. Kelime had begun weeping in the afternoon and she was still crying the following morning. Mary didn’t know what to do. Semih Bey had stayed over in one of the guest rooms but he’d made it clear he didn’t want to be disturbed unless his brother was found or his niece became ill. And although Kelime was distressed, she wasn’t sick. The lack of endless treats could even be doing her good, physically.
‘Where’s Daddy? Why doesn’t he come?’ she sobbed. ‘What have I done wrong, Miss Mary?’
‘Nothing, dear. Nothing.’
Mary knew that Ahmet Öden wasn’t the man she wanted him to be. Vain and hypocritical, he didn’t worship God, but money. God just helped him get where he wanted to go. However, Mary had believed the high moral act with all her heart. So the appearance of the gypsy hooker when she’d first seen her with him months ago had been a shock. The Ödens had been on holiday at Ahmet’s villa in Marmaris when it had happened. It was Mary’s day off and Semih Öden had taken Kelime to the beach for the day. Mary had planned to drive to the ruins at Knidos for the day but then she’d felt sick in the heat and had returned to the villa. She’d almost walked in on them. Later she’d discovered that the woman lived in Moda, later still that she lived there at Ahmet Öden’s expense.
Kelime cried, smearing snot all over Mary’s nightdress. She’d tried to get her to use tissues, but she wouldn’t. It didn’t matter. Mary smoothed the girl’s hair. ‘Sssh. Sssh,’ she said. ‘Daddy will be home when he can, Kelime. Daddy loves you so much. You know that, don’t you?’
The girl just carried on crying.
And at the bottom of her soul, Mary didn’t know whether she was giving Kelime, or herself, false hopes. Mr Öden, Ahmet, was involved in a business known for its controversy. That’s what all the mad Gezi nonsense was about. She pictured Öden in her mind’s eye. When she’d been a girl she’d dreamed of a man like him. She’d become a nanny so she could find some dark, exotic man straight out of a romance novel. But then she’d discovered that all such men ever wanted was sex. She’d never consented to it. She’d lost jobs because of it. And then she had got old.
Even in her darkest moments, Mary hadn’t been able to accept that the reason Ahmet Öden had never touched her was because he didn’t want her. If she closed her eyes to the gypsy mistress – and now that she was dead that was easier to do – she knew he’d want a pure virgin like her, whatever her age. Good men did. Except that he wasn’t a good man . . .
Silently, Mary started to cry. She’d waited all her life for someone like Ahmet Öden and just as she had finally begun to get him where she wanted him to be, he’d gone. Who, she wondered, had taken him from her?
‘Go on! Kick it down, you cowardly bastard!’
Samsun flicked her front teeth with a polished thumbnail and called the man in full riot gear the worst name she could think of.
‘You started this, you shits!’ Madonna screamed.
Another officer joined the one kicking the tent down. They stamped on the women’s food.
‘You have alcohol in there,’ one of them said in order to justify his actions.
‘No, but I wish I did,’ Samsun said. ‘I could do with a rakı now. But actually I wouldn’t drink it, I’d throw it at you. Then I’d use this.’
She clicked her cigarette lighter.
He caught her round the side of her head with his riot shield and laid her out cold.
Madonna screamed. ‘Samsun!’ She ran to the body stretched out next to the ruined tent.
Someone laughed.
Madonna put a hand on Samsun’s throat. She still had a pulse, but the old girl was not well at the best of times. She looked up and saw even more police pouring into the park. Where those Molotov cocktails had come from, she didn’t know. But she couldn’t believe it was from any of the protesters. This was provocation, it had to be!
A bearded man in Şalvar trousers ran over to her and said, ‘I saw what happened. Is she breathing?’
‘Yes.’
He turned to the officers. ‘That was a cowardly act,’ he said. ‘Unworthy of a Muslim!’
They said nothing.
‘You should be ashamed!’
One grabbed his arm and pulled him behind a tree where two more officers beat him until he was just a motionless bloodied figure on the ground. Then they left.
Madonna pulled Samsun up into a sitting position and slapped her rapidly swelling face. First she made a groaning noise and then she very slowly opened her eyes.
‘Oh, my God, you’re conscious!’ Madonna said.
‘Takesh . . .’ Samsun took the bottom set of her false teeth out so that she could talk. ‘Takes more than a riot shield to put me down,’ she said.
The bearded man on the ground began to whimper.
Madonna looked at him nervously. ‘We can’t leave him,’ she said. ‘He tried to protect you.’
Çetin İkmen flung the laboratory report across his desk and then tried his son’s mobile again. Gezi had exploded and Kemal was missing. He’d left Fatma at home, virtually prostrate. But whoever else was missing or dead or unknown, Commissioner Teker was leaning on him to find Ahmet Öden. Semih Öden had threatened to involve the Prime Minister himself if his brother wasn’t found soon. The bastard was probably already in a diabetic coma, but İkmen knew he had to do something.
He put out an information request to taxi drivers, which he left in the hands of Kerim Gürsel. Then he got in his car and called Mehmet Süleyman. He thought it was going to ring out. Then a breathless voice said, ‘Çetin?’
İkmen turned the key in the car’s ignition. ‘Where are you? Why are you out of breath?’
He instantly regretted his allusion to breath.
But Süleyman said, ‘The police have moved in on Gezi. Something about the protesters throwing Molotov cocktails. We’ve just managed to get Gonca’s father and two of her daughters out.’
‘I heard they’d gone in,’ İkmen said. ‘Mehmet, you haven’t seen Kemal, have you?’
More breathlessness and then, ‘No. I’m sorry, Çetin, it’s chaos. That we managed to find anyone in that madness is a miracle. Do you want me to . . .?’
‘No, no. Just if you do see him, tell him to go home. You can imagine how Fatma is.’
‘Yes.’
‘Get out of there if you can,’ İkmen said. Then he ended the call.
When he arrived at the Negroponte House, all its windows were shuttered. It was early for anyone not involved in Gezi and so he decided to wait a while before he rang the bell. With the exception of his own house, this was the last place Ahmet Öden had been seen before he disappeared. And, according to Süleyman, it had been a stressful encounter. At least for Öden.
Twenty minutes passed before he saw old Hakkı walk into the garden and light a cigarette. İkmen got out of his car and walked towards the house.
‘Good morning, Hakkı Bey.’
At first he frowned. Then he squinted. He didn’t see so well any more. Eventually he smiled. ‘Ah, Çetin Bey. What brings you out on the streets so early today? Is it the madness we hear about in Gezi Park?’
‘No,’ İkmen said. ‘Do you have time to talk?’
‘Of course.’ Hakkı unlocked the front gate and let him in. ‘Would you like tea, Çetin Bey? Some breakfast?’
‘No thank you, Hakkı Bey.’
‘I have just cooked for Madam and Yiannis, it’s no problem,’ he said.
They walked into the house via the French windows which led into the salon. Yiannis Negroponte, still in his pyjamas, was sitting at the dining table eating menemen. The omelette was deep and luscious and, had he been in the mood to eat, İkmen could have demolished the lot. But his stomach, as it was so often, was as tight as a hazelnut.
‘Mr Negroponte . . .’
‘Oh . . . Oh, good morning, Çetin Bey. To what do we owe the pleasure of your company? Please do sit down.’
‘I will bring you tea,’ Hakkı said and left the room.
İkmen didn’t really want any tea but he knew the rules of Turkish hospitality and so tea would probably be accompanied by a freshly cooked omelette in spite of his earlier protestations.
Until the old man returned, İkmen and Yiannis talked of Gezi, of the weather and of how the city had changed so rapidly in recent years.
‘When I first
returned from Germany in the early nineties, all of the historical buildings in Sultanahmet could be seen unimpeded against the skyline,’ Yiannis said. ‘Now, from almost every angle, you can see tower blocks heading into the sky behind Aya Sofya, Topkapı and the rest. I think it’s a shame. The city is poorer for it.’
İkmen agreed and not just to placate Yiannis Negroponte. He hated the way the skyline had become compromised over the years.
Hakkı returned, with tea and, predictably, an omelette.
‘Ah, Hakkı Bey, you—’
‘All your life you’ve been far too thin, Çetin Bey,’ the old man said. ‘Even as a child. You need feeding.’ He put the plate down on the dining table. ‘Come. Eat. If you can’t finish, it’s no matter.’
İkmen did as he was told. In most Turkish households resistance to middle-aged mothers and old men, particularly when it came to food, was useless. And so he ate, drank and complimented the old man on his culinary skills. Then he said, ‘Hakkı Bey, Yiannis Bey, the reason I’m here this morning is about Ahmet Öden.’
‘What about him?’
Öden’s disappearance wasn’t common knowledge yet, but İkmen was surprised that neither of the men asked him whether Öden was outside. As they well knew, İkmen’s presence couldn’t stop that.
‘He’s missing,’ İkmen said.
‘Missing?’
‘The day before yesterday, he went out in the evening and never returned.’
Yiannis shrugged. ‘If he is really missing, I’m sorry for his family. But why are you talking to us about it?’
‘Because he came here the day he went missing,’ İkmen said. ‘One of my colleagues saw him enter this house mid-morning and leave about an hour later, in what appeared to be a furious state.’
‘Yes, he was here,’ Yiannis said. ‘I won’t deny it. I had him in here so that he could see the state of this place he so wants to buy. I wanted him to see the rotten plumbing and the subsidence cracks for himself.’
‘He wants to knock it down to build a hotel, doesn’t he?’ İkmen said. ‘Why would the state of this place worry him?’
‘If this house has subsidence then so will his hotel,’ Yiannis said. ‘Anyway, he left in a temper because I still refused to sell. This is my home.’
Land of the Blind Page 26
