Land of the Blind

by Barbara Nadel

  ‘Porphyry was very expensive,’ Bozdağ said. ‘It comes from Egypt and so it had to be mined, transported and then fashioned by expert craftsmen. In Aya Sofya, which is all I have to measure this amazing place by, the stone literally dresses the walls. It was rendered into thin slivers using silk as a cutting tool. Absolutely niche technology. Brilliant!’

  ‘You imagine this stone will be thin like that?’

  ‘There will be brick or ordinary, non-decorative stone blocks behind it, I imagine. The porphyry will have been fixed to that with mortar and so immense care will have to be taken when loosening it. If, as I suspect, these sheets of porphyry are thin, then you risk cracking them if you try to wrench them off. I can’t stress more forcefully—’

  ‘Inspector İkmen!’

  ‘What?’

  Ali Bey, head of the forensic team, held the headphones he had been wearing out to İkmen. ‘May be rats but I can hear something.’

  ‘And there’s something here that could be a cavity.’ His partner, a female officer, looked into İkmen’s eyes. ‘It’s only small.’

  İkmen took the headphones and listened. For a moment he heard nothing and when something did come it wasn’t much more than a click. Which could have been anything. He gave the headphones back. Then he turned to Kerim Gürsel. ‘Get Hakkı Bey and Mr Negroponte down here.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Professor Bozdağ asked.

  İkmen said to Ali Bey, ‘Could that sound be human? Given your experience with this equipment?’

  Ali Bey put his head on one side. He wasn’t sure.

  Professor Bozdağ said, ‘If there’s any doubt . . .’

  ‘Well?’ İkmen said.

  Ali Bey sighed. ‘Given what I’ve heard through this device before, I’d say it’s a, well, a being,’ he said. ‘I think I got breathing. But as I say, it could be a rat or a bat or . . .’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Professor Bozdağ said.

  İkmen stayed silent. Kerim Gürsel and two constables escorted Yiannis Negroponte and Hakkı Bey into the Red Room.

  ‘All right, no time to waste,’ İkmen said. He put his hand on the wall. ‘This is hollow and we can hear some sounds that might be human. Last chance. Do you know if anyone is imprisoned behind these walls?’

  He’d asked them separately when he’d first worked out what Madam Anastasia had been saying to him. They had both said the same thing: they didn’t know what he was talking about. This time they said nothing.

  İkmen walked up to Yiannis. ‘I know what this room is now,’ he said. ‘It must be very special to you.’

  Yiannis turned his head away.

  ‘But I’m going to have to break down that wall,’ İkmen said. ‘I’m going to have to damage the Red Room . . .’

  He heard Professor Bozdağ say, ‘Oh, my God.’

  ‘And because we think a person might be trapped behind that wall, we’re just going to have to smash our way in there,’ İkmen continued.

  He studied both their faces.

  ‘And if we do find someone in there, we are going to talk again.’

  Neither of them so much as flinched. İkmen told Kerim to take them away.

  Professor Bozdağ grabbed İkmen’s arm. ‘For the love of God, you can’t just smash your way in, man! This room is priceless!’

  İkmen patted the professor’s hand. ‘We’ll do our best,’ he said. ‘But if a human being is in these walls . . .’

  ‘But why would that be?’ Bozdağ said. He knew very little of the background to what was about to happen, so of course he was confused. ‘Because an old lady says she can hear scratching sounds?’

  ‘There’s more to it than that,’ İkmen said. ‘All I will say is that the Negropontes have enemies. Now I’m going to have to request a team to come and get this wall down.’

  Professor Bozdağ began to cry.

  Once İkmen had called for technical assistance he phoned Mehmet Süleyman.

  There was such a simplicity in the faith of the people around her that it made Mary want to weep. Women of all ages – she was only surrounded by women – looked up to the Prime Minister, who smiled at them and told them that everything was going to be all right. Gezi Park was under control now and he would personally make sure that anyone who had damaged property or injured police officers would be brought to justice.

  A lot of people waved banners. One said ‘Let’s ruin this big plot!’ In spite of trying to keep abreast of recent political developments, Mary had been distracted by the disappearance of Ahmet Öden, so she wasn’t entirely sure what the reasons behind the Gezi protests were. She asked a woman next to her.

  ‘Oh, it’s a secular plot, that is,’ the woman said. ‘Those old generals who used to run the country want to do so again. But we won’t let them.’

  ‘No.’

  She’d heard Mr Öden talk about ‘them’ – the secular opposition – his voice full of contempt. He’d told her once that when he was a child and the army ruled the country there had been curfews, religious people had been put in prison for no other reason than their faith and some of them had subsequently disappeared. The AK Parti had redressed the balance.

  Mary felt inspired. The women around her were tactile and friendly and they shared their food and drink with her and with each other. These were good, kind people. Why had anyone ever wanted to hurt them? One woman explained, ‘It’s because there are more of us than them,’ she said. ‘If God wills, we have more children and we bring them up to be good Muslims. And that is a much more powerful thing to be than a godless soldier.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Everyone had come to hear the Prime Minister speak, which he did at length. And with passion. Some men in the crowd shouted out their desire to go to Gezi and finish off the traitors in the park. Mary, brought to tears by the ardour people were exhibiting, screamed her desire to join them.

  Professor Bozdağ had gone into the garden. Kerim Gürsel had taken him out at İkmen’s request. As soon as the stone cutters had arrived, he’d tried to get involved, so he’d had to go. But as the professor had predicted, the porphyry in the Red Room was thin. Underneath it was undressed stone, and below that were bricks.

  İkmen joined Süleyman in the Negropontes’ kitchen.

  Süleyman offered him a cigarette. ‘Why do you think that Madam Anastasia’s imprisoned individual is down here?’

  İkmen took the cigarette and lit up. ‘Because of the tapping in the walls,’ he said. ‘The house is largely wooden. Where could you imprison someone in a structure with such a thin skin?’

  ‘Who do you think is in there? Öden?’

  İkmen shrugged. ‘He’s still missing.’

  Stone cutting began again in the Red Room. When the technicians stopped to clear the detritus away, İkmen said, ‘You know, that room in there is the Red Room where only true Byzantine emperors and empresses were born. It was part of the Great Palace.’

  ‘Why’s it under this house?’

  ‘The Negropontes have lived on this site forever,’ İkmen said. ‘They must have taken it upon themselves to preserve it. I imagine that when the city was first conquered, people knew where the Red Room was. Land levels rise over time, so after a while it got lost.’

  ‘Do you think that Ariadne Savva found it?’

  ‘I don’t know. But if she did then I wonder whether she found it with or without Yiannis Negroponte’s knowledge.’

  ‘You’re thinking he might have killed her? Because she knew about this place?’

  ‘You know the lengths he went to, to protect this place,’ İkmen said. ‘All those optical illusions. This place means something to these people that we can only glimpse. History is always written by the victors, isn’t it? We forget about the losers and what was important and sacred to them. We throw their magic into the dustbin of history.’

  ‘Inspector İkmen! You need to see this! Now!’

  The voice came from the Red Room. İkmen look
ed at Süleyman. They both got up and walked into the dark porphyry space together.

  Chapter 32

  He’d been almost dead. He still was, in spite of the machinery that was keeping him alive. Ahmet Öden was a Type 1 diabetic and he hadn’t eaten anything since he’d disappeared. He was also dehydrated, unconscious and, when he’d been found, covered in his own excrement. The only things that had been discovered with him in the cavity where he’d been bricked up were an empty jug of water and the remains of a candle. How long he’d been in complete darkness was unknown. But whoever had put him there had done so with his suffering in mind.

  ‘I can understand why you hate Mr Öden,’ İkmen said to Yiannis Negroponte. ‘Especially now I know how important your home is to you. How’d you do it, Mr Negroponte? How’d you get Öden to come to the house without any of his people? Was it at night?’

  Yiannis Negroponte said nothing. He’d declined the offer of a lawyer, opting instead for silence.

  İkmen ploughed on. ‘Do you even know? Or did Hakkı Bey do it all? He’s done most things for your family over the years. Not now, though. Now he’s with Inspector Süleyman, and I believe he’s talking.’

  He wasn’t, but it was never a bad idea to put doubts into a suspect’s mind about his fellows. Yiannis Negroponte didn’t react. He stared at the table in front of him in the same way he’d done ever since he’d entered the interview room.

  İkmen looked at Kerim Gürsel and shrugged. ‘Well, Sergeant, tell me what I can do? I have a man here who won’t talk about another man who was imprisoned in his house.’

  ‘Can’t see that you can avoid charging him with imprisonment and attempted murder, sir,’ Kerim Gürsel said.

  ‘Or maybe actual murder,’ İkmen said.

  Yiannis looked up.

  ‘He could die, Yiannis.’

  He looked down again and then he said, ‘Who is looking after my mother?’

  ‘We’re looking for Hakkı Bey’s son Lokman,’ İkmen said. ‘She knows him. In the meantime social services have become involved.’

  ‘She’s not to go into an old age home.’

  ‘If we find Lokman and he agrees to care for Madam Anastasia for the time being, she won’t,’ İkmen said. ‘If not, I don’t know.’

  ‘There’s her priest, Father Diogenes,’ Yiannis said. ‘At the Aya Triada. Why can’t I go home?’

  ‘I’ve told you,’ İkmen said, ‘you are here because we found an almost deceased missing person, Ahmet Öden, imprisoned in your house.’

  ‘Has Öden said I put him there?’

  ‘No. He can’t speak, he’s in a coma. He may never speak again, but hopefully we’ll be able to recover enough evidence from the scene and beyond to be able to convict someone.’ He leaned on the table. ‘Tell us what you know, Yiannis. This terrible thing happened in your house, you must know something. The Red Room is the most precious part of your home. You know everything that goes on in it.’

  Yiannis Negroponte closed his eyes and went silent again.

  ‘I could have you beaten so hard your kidneys explode.’

  The old man looked at Mehmet Süleyman without emotion.

  ‘We’re looking for your son. When I get hold of him, I could do what I want with him too. He lives in the east, I could charge him with terrorist offences.’

  ‘Do what you will, Mehmet Bey,’ Hakkı said. ‘I can’t tell you anything about the Öden man.’

  Mehmet Süleyman sat down. Then he put his legs on the table in front of Hakkı Bey and lit a cigarette. ‘You’ve worked for the Negropontes all your life,’ he said. ‘Why?’

  ‘My father worked for them, and his father.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Madam’s grandfather, Bacchus Bey, he took my grandfather in.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He was a hamal,’ the old man said. ‘Carrying things for rich people. Bacchus Bey wanted him to take a bed from Sirkeci Station to his house. My grandfather did it, but when he got to the house he was exhausted. He’d been wounded in the war against the Arabs. One of his legs was twisted and partially paralysed. Bacchus Bey gave him a job in his garden and my grandmother a job in the house. When my father grew up, Bacchus Bey gave him work too. Madam’s father continued the tradition. Then Madam.’

  ‘And what about your son? What about Lokman? Will he work in the Negroponte House when you die?’

  ‘No. It’s different times now. He works for his father-in-law on his farm. He has another life.’

  Süleyman smoked. ‘Mmm. I suppose the Negropontes must be running out of money now,’ he said. ‘Mind you, should they decide to exhibit the Red Room . . . I do know what it is, you realise, Hakkı Bey. I know how important it is too.’

  ‘You are an educated man.’

  ‘It’s where the Byzantine emperors were born. Being born in that room meant that you were automatically “born to the purple” and so could legitimately rule the Byzantine Empire. When Ahmet Öden was pressing Mr Negroponte to buy the house, did he know about the Red Room?’

  ‘We have always kept it to ourselves,’ Hakkı said.

  ‘Yes, but did he know about it, somehow?’

  ‘We kept it to ourselves,’ he reiterated. ‘Why?’

  ‘I think I ask the questions,’ Süleyman said.

  ‘Yes, Mehmet Süleyman Bey—’

  ‘But I’ll take it.’ He took his feet off the table. ‘You ask why. Because anyone would have to be either truly full of hatred or fearful almost beyond reason to do what has been done to Mr Öden. Walling a person up is mediaeval-style torture. In fact I think the Byzantine emperors did it to their enemies. Whoever did it to Mr Öden wanted him to die but they also wanted him to suffer. He knew about the Red Room, didn’t he? He knew about it and had plans for it you and Mr Negroponte didn’t like.’

  Hakkı said nothing.

  ‘We’ll find out,’ Süleyman said. ‘Whether Mr Öden is able to talk to us eventually or whether he is left without speech or dies is irrelevant to us. Hakkı Bey, I know that the Negropontes are your employers, that you feel grateful to them, that there is a connection between you, but—’

  ‘Mehmet Bey, what of Madam Anastasia?’

  The sudden change of subject, briefly, threw him. ‘What?’

  ‘Madam. Who is looking after her? She can’t be in that house on her own. She can’t feed herself.’

  He’d tried to get to the old woman when he was arrested. He’d begged to see her and Çetin İkmen had asked Madam Anastasia if she wanted to see the old man before he left the house. But she had been very firm that she didn’t. She’d seen Yiannis, but not Hakkı. And yet his eyes were filling with tears when he spoke about her.

  ‘Madam Negroponte isn’t your concern,’ Süleyman said.

  ‘Yes, she is!’

  ‘No, she isn’t. She rejected you. Remember? She saw her son, but not you. I know you think you’re part of the family but you’re not. You’re just a servant. They know it and so should you.’

  Hakkı Bey began to cry.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake!’ Süleyman stood up and paced the room impatiently. ‘Ahmet Öden’s argument, if you can even call it that, was with the Negropontes, not with you! If Yiannis Negroponte walled Öden up in the Red Room then it’s your duty to inform on him. You owe him nothing! Did he threaten you? Make you help him entomb Öden?’

  Hakkı didn’t speak.

  Süleyman shook his head and sat down again. ‘You’re a sad man, Hakkı Bey,’ he said. ‘A man who has lost his identity, who doesn’t know his place. You’ve been with the Negropontes for so long, you think you’re one of them. You’re not. They have abandoned you. Reclaim yourself now and tell me what you know.’

  Again, Hakkı said nothing.

  ‘When people’s backs are against the wall, Hakkı Bey, people tend to protect their own. And these people are not your own.’

  Hakkı, no longer crying, raised his head. ‘Ah well, that’s where you’re wrong, Mehmet Süleyman Bey.’

&n
bsp; Lale Hanım, Ahmet Öden’s eldest sister, was one of those very stylish covered women. Her scarves were Hermès and she wore a pair of the prettiest, tiniest Jimmy Choo shoes that Mary had ever seen. Compared to Lale Hanım, she felt like a bag lady. Not that it mattered. Just one room away, Ahmet Öden lay on a bed, on life support, fighting for his life. She’d been told that those Greeks he’d been dealing with had tried to kill him by burying him alive behind a wall. The things people did!

  Mary looked at Kelime. Happily playing with her Barbie house on the floor, she seemed to have lost not only much of her anxiety about her father in recent days, but also any real notion of his existence. She had been fed – Semih Bey, Ahmet Bey’s brother, had said she was to be given everything and anything she wanted – she had her toys and her television. Now she was chattering away to herself and even laughing.

  A doctor entered. Semih Öden stood up.

  ‘Are you Mr Öden’s next of kin?’ the doctor said.

  Mary felt her heart squeeze with anxiety.

  ‘Yes,’ Semih said. ‘But you can say anything you need to, to all of us.’

  The doctor looked around the small, stuffy room with emotionless eyes.

  ‘Ahmet Bey is suffering from a condition called diabetic ketoacidosis. It’s serious.’

  ‘We know,’ Semih said. ‘What are you doing about it?’

  His tone was aggressive. Mary wondered whether it was just because he was so worried about his brother or because the hospital and its staff were foreign. There was a rumour going round that the Germans were behind the Gezi protests and this was a German hospital. It was also one of the best in the city.

  ‘Mr Öden has some swelling of the brain tissue,’ the doctor said. ‘We are trying to reduce that. Also the kidneys have been compromised and so we are giving him dialysis.’

  Lale Hanım looked confused. Her brother looked as if he was about to explain when the doctor said, ‘Due to the insulin deficit that he suffered, his body is breaking down. We are trying to arrest this process.’

  ‘So will he be—’

  ‘If he survives, I cannot say what his prognosis might be,’ the doctor said. ‘When the brain swells there is always damage. Time will tell.’