The House of Four

by Barbara Nadel

  ‘I could get used to this,’ the girl said as she threw her jacket on the floor and sat down. ‘Bosphorus views! Look!’

  Her partner, a young man in jeans and a T-shirt, stood and smoked by a shattered window. Huge, thick shards of broken glass littered the floor. ‘We’ve been lucky the last few weeks,’ he said. ‘Come winter it’ll be fucking awful again.’

  ‘Oh, enjoy the fun while it lasts!’ the woman said. She took a small tin out of her tracksuit bottoms and laid it on the ground in front of her.

  The man shook his head.

  ‘What?’ She rolled up the sleeve of her sweatshirt.

  ‘You’re being greedy,’ he said.

  ‘And you’re never ready to get fucked?’

  He looked away as she wrapped a filthy handkerchief around her thin arm and took a syringe out of the tin.

  ‘You’ll end up in the nuthouse,’ he said softly.

  She laughed. ‘So what’s new? You think that one more hit here or there is going to make any difference? Anyway, we’re having fun!’

  She slapped up a vein in the crook of her elbow and shoved the needle in. As she plunged the contents of the syringe into her body, she sighed with relief. Then she lay back and closed her eyes.

  He waited as long as he could, as long as the irritation in his skin would allow, and then he took the syringe from her limp fingers and looked at it. She’d left precious little for him. He sat beside her. ‘You’re a selfish bitch.’

  But she didn’t hear him.

  He unknotted the handkerchief around her arm and pulled it tight around his own bicep. Then he injected himself with the bloodied needle and lay down. He nuzzled into her shoulder and thought about how much he loved her.

  Chapter 7

  Nobody really knew how many people lived in İstanbul. Some said twelve million; some fourteen million. Others claimed that if you took the refugees from Syria into account it was more like sixteen million. Ömer Mungun didn’t claim to know any more than anyone else, but what he did know was that the population of the city was huge. Every journey by car and especially by public transport confirmed this. As he looked at the CCTV footage from inside the tram where Saira Öymen had died, he wondered how anybody managed to stay sane.

  Just identifying the woman was difficult. There were at least five covered women in that part of the carriage at any one time, and every time someone else got on, the whole configuration of the compartment changed. Sometimes the Öymen woman had her back to the sliding doors, sometimes she was in the middle of the carriage, and at one point she appeared to be leaning against someone’s suitcase. Those around her shifted. Also, and just to make identifying what might have happened to her even more difficult, Saira Öymen herself was a cipher. Because her face was covered, there was no expression that might give a clue as to when and by whom she had been attacked.

  So far ten people had come forward to speak to the police about what had happened, but none of them had seen anything untoward. Süleyman had spoken to the woman’s husband, who had admitted that he had hit her but who denied any involvement with her death. Adnan Öymen had proudly declared himself ‘no junkie’, while claiming, with no sense of irony whatsoever, that his wife needed the odd slap in order to make her aware of her wifely duties.

  Ömer played back a piece of footage that showed Saira Öymen looking at someone on her left. Another covered woman, so it seemed. Süleyman was convinced there was a connection between this and the attacks on the Englishman crossing the Galata Bridge and the boy in the Grand Bazaar. True, they were all random, but this one had included a narcotic substance while the others had been straightforward stabbings. Were they connected?

  Tired, Ömer paused the CCTV and leaned against the back of his chair. The small office opposite Süleyman’s was being prepared for someone who was coming to help Inspector İkmen interpret some old letters from his crime scene in Moda. Apparently these letters had been written by his victims in the old pre-republican Ottoman script. It was like Arabic, which Ömer knew, but obviously there were references and idioms he would be unable to interpret. He wondered why anyone had bothered to learn Ottoman. The president had said that he wanted people to learn it, but that was only very recently. Like his own language, Ottoman had, for many, many decades, been consigned to history.

  But then, as Ömer knew only too well, some things came back.

  Çetin İkmen’s late father had always said that the Beyoğlu district of Çukurcuma contained more spies, con men and those with shifting identities than anywhere else in the whole of the city. Forty years ago, he’d had a point. But now Çukurcuma, though still in places shabby, was also very chic. Attracted by its many antique shops and cafés, the elite had moved in some years ago and created an artistic quarter that included the author Orhan Pamuk’s famous ‘Museum of Innocence’. All this change did not mean, however, that the old Çukurcuma of the spy, the career criminal and the relentlessly eccentric had entirely disappeared.

  İkmen hadn’t climbed the many stairs up to the tiny apartment at the top of the old Mirzoyan Building on Faık Paşa Caddesi in over ten years. But with no obvious heirs to the Rudolfoğlu estate on the horizon, and because the alchemist of Üsküdar was long dead, he didn’t feel as if he had a choice.

  When he knocked on the scarred door, he wasn’t sure that he’d find anyone in. He had to wait. But when the door opened, he saw a familiar face and figure.

  The man frowned. ‘Çetin İkmen?’ he asked.

  ‘Do I look so different?’

  ‘Yes, you’ve got old,’ the man said.

  ‘Well you haven’t, which means, I imagine, that you are still practising the dark arts. Which is excellent.’

  The man shrugged. ‘Come in,’ he said. Then he called out, ‘Rüya, dear, we have company.’

  The Ottoman language expert was a cop! And a woman! Who was hot!

  Ömer Mungun could hardly believe his eyes when he saw Kerim Gürsel escort what looked like a leather-clad escapee from one of his fantasies into the small office opposite the one he shared with Süleyman. Against all his own moral standards, Ömer pressed his ear to the door so that he could hear what they were saying.

  He’d heard Kerim call the woman ‘Constable’ when she arrived; now he was saying, ‘. . . the office I share with Inspector İkmen, or across the corridor, which is Inspector Süleyman’s office. The inspector or his sergeant, Ömer Bey, will always be able to answer your queries if we are out.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘Pleasure.’

  Kerim could be so charming. But he was married, and so he was completely out of the running. Ömer felt his head spin. God, he’d only just seen this woman! What was he thinking?

  ‘Now, can I get you some tea?’ Kerim asked.

  ‘I don’t suppose you have coffee, do you?’ she said. ‘I know it’s really impertinent of me, but . . .’

  ‘Not at all! What would you like, latte, cappuccino . . .?’

  ‘Well . . .’ He heard her laugh a little. It was pleasantly husky. ‘You know I come from the east, so I like my coffee strong.’

  ‘Ah, Turkish coffee.’

  ‘Perfect,’ she said. ‘But really strong, if that’s OK, and no sugar. For reasons I won’t bore you with, I was brought up on mirra coffee.’

  Ömer felt his heart jump in his chest.

  ‘What’s that?’ Kerim asked.

  ‘It’s a very condensed coffee,’ she said. ‘Brewed many times for many hours. People in Mardin district love it.’

  ‘But you said you’re from Diyarbakır.’

  ‘I also said that for reasons I won’t bore you with, I was brought up on mirra.’

  They both laughed. Ömer ran away from the door before he heard any more. For a native of the eastern city of Mardin like himself, just hearing the word ‘mirra’ was enough to set the heart racing. He wondered what the constable’s name was, and whether she always wore motorbike leathers.

  He hoped so.

&n
bsp; Even though he looked barely fifty, Sami Nasi was actually almost seventy. He’d been one of İkmen’s father’s students when he’d taught English at İstanbul University. Çetin remembered him as a good-looking and enthusiastic student. He could still see that person even in the gloom of the apartment.

  ‘Come and meet Rüya,’ Sami said. ‘I think you’ll approve.’

  İkmen took his shoes off at the door and followed his host through into a room filled with books, cabinets and a large copper alembic still, which crouched on the floor amid a forest of test tubes held upright in retort stands.

  ‘Still looking for that tiny gap then, Sami?’ he said as he lit a cigarette.

  Sami Nasi looked over his half-moon glasses and frowned. ‘Your mother wouldn’t have mocked me, Çetin.’

  ‘And I am not mocking you either,’ the policeman said. ‘I don’t entirely understand you, but I’m not mocking you. My mother was a witch so she didn’t need proof of the unseen. Ditto the occultists I’ve met over the years. I don’t know why you do. That’s all.’

  ‘Your mother, with respect,’ said Nasi, ‘was not a skilled stage magician. Anyway, what do you want?’

  But before he could answer, İkmen saw the face of a woman looking at him. She smiled and said, ‘Hello.’

  He didn’t answer immediately. Even by İkmen’s somewhat outré standards, responding to a disembodied head, albeit a cheerful one on a silver platter, was unusual.

  ‘That’s Rüya,’ Sami said. ‘My assistant.’

  ‘Hello . . .’

  She smiled again.

  ‘I repeat, İkmen, what do you want?’ Sami said. ‘I know anyway, but . . .’

  ‘I want to know if you know anything about a family in Moda.’

  ‘The Rudolfoğlus.’

  İkmen sighed and sat down in the nearest free chair.

  ‘I read the newspapers as well as people,’ Sami said. ‘My grandfather was acquainted with Rudolf Paşa. I’m sure you’ve worked out that had to be a possibility, so I know it’s why you’re here.’

  ‘It’s not the only reason,’ İkmen said. ‘But you have me on the first count. So Josef Paşa knew Rudolf Paşa.’

  ‘Yes, but not for long,’ Sami said.

  A voice from the other side of the room interjected. ‘Sami, do you want me to make tea?’

  He looked at the disembodied head and smiled. ‘Rüya, darling, you just stay where you are and look beautiful.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘You don’t mind about the lack of tea, do you, İkmen?’ Sami asked.

  ‘No, I’m just glad you didn’t stop me smoking. Now, to get back to your grandfather . . .’

  ‘Rudolf Paşa sought him out,’ Sami said. ‘He wasn’t difficult to find. He performed all over the city and used his father’s name.’

  ‘His alleged father,’ İkmen said.

  Sami threw his hands in the air. ‘Have it your way,’ he said. ‘He used the name of the great Hungarian magician Josef Vanek, originator of the only motile disembodied head illusion and lover of my great-grandmother Vanna. Happy?’

  ‘Sami, I have no doubt you are, one way or another, a magician’s progeny, but you are also an extremely confusing man who cannot be taken at face value,’ İkmen said. ‘Now, please continue.’

  ‘Rudolf Paşa shared my grandfather’s interest in the gap,’ Sami said. ‘The space between reality and illusion where real magic resides – if it does. This led him inevitably to the occult and the Kabbalah. He became fascinated by the connections Kabbalists believe exist between base matter and the divine.’

  ‘Only a step away from alchemy,’ İkmen said.

  ‘Which Rudolf Paşa is well known to have practised. And yes, my grandfather did guide him in his early investigations. But then he stopped.’

  ‘Why?’

  Sami produced a bottle and two glasses out of nowhere and sat down. ‘Cognac? It is French.’

  ‘How delightful,’ İkmen said. ‘Yes. Small one. But doesn’t the lady . . .’

  He looked at where the head of Rüya had been, but she’d gone. Just an empty silver platter remained.

  ‘Probably wanted to take a shower,’ Sami said. ‘We’ve been practising all morning.’

  ‘Does this mean that you plan to perform again?’

  ‘No point in having an assistant if I wasn’t. Three years ago it occurred to me that, while disembodied head tricks are common, no one was doing my great-grandfather’s act. Allowing the audience to interact with and actually hold the platter with the head bleeding on to it is something few can do. And that, if nothing else, Çetin, proves beyond doubt that my great-grandfather was indeed Josef Vanek. He taught my grandfather that trick when he returned to İstanbul in the late 1870s.’

  ‘Maybe he just thought your grandfather would be interested,’ İkmen said.

  Sami glared at him. He knew that İkmen was aware that his great-grandmother had been a Syrian prostitute, and that his grandfather could have been the result of a liaison with almost anyone. But Vanek had undoubtedly taken an interest in the family, and Sami had inherited the head illusion unchanged from the nineteenth century.

  ‘Can we please get back to Rudolf Paşa?’ İkmen said.

  Sami sighed. ‘I never spoke to my grandfather about this, and so I got it second hand from my father.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Alchemy is an art,’ he said. ‘I have been practising it all my adult life. My aim is to find the truth, the gap between reality and the unseen. Rudolf Paşa, according to my grandfather, had another aim.’

  ‘Don’t tell me: he wanted to make gold.’

  ‘And power. But he didn’t want to put the work in. Any work.’ He sipped his cognac. ‘He did what the lazy always do and made a pact with the Devil.’

  ‘Ah, now . . .’

  ‘I don’t know whether he did that literally or not. Who am I to say? But according to my grandfather, someone died so that Rudolf Paşa could try and create gold. Someone was sacrificed. And yes, I do mean sacrificed to the Devil.’

  İkmen lit another cigarette. ‘Who?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Sami said. ‘I imagine it was probably someone who wouldn’t be missed. A homeless person, perhaps. We’ll probably never know. This happened at the beginning of the twentieth century, when my grandfather was already well into middle age and had other things on his mind: my father must have just been born.’

  ‘So he ceased his association with Rudolf Paşa.’

  ‘Yes, although he did perform for him once more, just before the First World War. Rudolf Paşa was a member of the Oriental Club.’

  ‘That club for the Ottoman elite and foreign diplomats,’ İkmen said.

  ‘A lot of them were German,’ Sami said. ‘They had, maybe still have, a place out in Moda, near Rudolf Paşa’s palace, where they used to meet in the summer months. My grandfather put on a show for them. But that was the end of it. My father used to say that my grandfather told him Rudolf Paşa looked thin and haunted.’

  ‘The strain of living with guilt?’

  ‘Maybe. But then anyone who takes a short cut to knowledge will pay the price,’ Sami said. ‘In this world or the next. And you know something, Çetin, they always realise this far too late.’

  ‘I was looking over at Seraglio Point, the Topkapı Palace,’ he said. ‘None of us have ever been here before, Inspector.’

  Richard Oates was the elder son of the dead man, Simon Oates. He’d just recently left university. He was the only member of the Oates party capable of talking to Süleyman without breaking down. However, the policeman was well aware that it was a terrible strain for such a young man to bear.

  ‘You saw no one approach your father?’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Not only was I looking away, but I was also talking to my brother.’

  ‘Paul.’

  ‘Yes. The first time either of us knew anything was wrong was when we heard my dad grunt.’

  ‘What did you do?’

&
nbsp; ‘Nothing until Mum said, “Simon!” like Dad had done something stupid or something. Then I looked and saw that he was on the ground. Uncle Ben was trying to help him. Then some of the guys who had been fishing came over. I remember seeing blood, but for some reason I didn’t think it was Dad’s. Probably because there was a lot of it. Dad was screaming by this time, which was when that woman came to help. She called the ambulance.’

  ‘Miss Gila Saban.’

  ‘If that’s her name,’ he said. ‘Can’t thank her enough. She told the fishermen to go away because they weren’t helping. Dad was just bleeding out by that time . . .’ He put a shaky hand up to his head. ‘Uncle Ben . . . er, Mr Benjamin Clarke, he was trying to staunch the bleeding, but he couldn’t. The stomach’s not like an arm. I . . .’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know what to tell you.’

  Süleyman looked down at his notes. ‘Well, let me ask you about Mr Clarke. Is he the brother of your mother, maybe?’

  Richard Oates smiled briefly. ‘No, he’s my godfather,’ he said. ‘No relation, just a friend of Mum and Dad’s from university. He’s always been there for us.’

  ‘I see.’

  Richard Oates’s face reddened.

  Süleyman wondered whether his tone of voice had been unconsciously suspicious. Or was it his phrasing?

  ‘No, I don’t think you do,’ Richard said. ‘Uncle Ben isn’t involved with my parents. Not in the way you think.’

  ‘I do not—’

  ‘I saw it on your face,’ the young man said. ‘People make assumptions because we all hang about together. But Uncle Ben is gay, OK? And before you start thinking God knows what about that, he’s never touched me or my brother. I hope that’s clear?’

  His aggression had just erupted. Not violently or loudly, but it was clear that something very subtle in Süleyman’s demeanour had made him bridle. Maybe the family and their friend had a lot of experience of suspicion. Or maybe Richard was just hypersensitive after his father’s death.