Laurence O’Bryan - The Istanbul Puzzle

Arap Anach was in the main marble-floored bedroom. A cocoa-skinned girl was lying on a white rug in front of him, face down.

‘You are a devil,’ he whispered. She moved her hips invitingly, then groaned.

She’d been well trained, and understood English. He made a mental note to use the same contact in the red light district of Mumbai again. This girl was, without doubt, a 10,000 rupee girl, exactly as he’d been promised. He would send the man a bonus. From what he knew had happened to the man’s family, he’d appreciate it.

He fingered one of the gauze-thin veils the girl had discarded. Then he examined her body. A creak sounded from outside the door. He didn’t react. He’d seen what he was looking for.

‘You think threads on your wrist will ward away evil spirits?’ he said.

She moaned. She hadn’t understood the turn this encounter was taking.

He looked at the scar on the back of his hand. Then, reflexively, he glanced around, even though he knew the room was secure, that no camera could be watching them, no microphone listening. He’d done the bug sweep himself.

It was time.

He placed the palm of his hand a hair’s breadth from her back, and traced the contours of her body without touching her.

‘I will be your last,’ he whispered. Would she react? Anticipation and adrenaline coursed through him.

Somewhere inside her there was a shard of anxiety, there had to be, but it was well hidden. She assumed, most probably, that because she’d survived thus far in her career, and had met many men, that the future would be the same as the past.

A tentative knock sounded from the door.

‘Do not move,’ he said firmly. He padded across the room, cracked the door open.

‘There is an envelope. It was sent to the Greek at his hotel,’ a voice whispered. ‘What should we do?’

‘Get it, fool.’ He clicked the door shut, walked back to the rug. As he passed the small table he passed his hand slowly through the flame of the candle burning on it, until he felt its sting.

‘Are you ready?’ he whispered. He kneeled down beside her, put one hand on her back.

She wriggled in anticipation. He reached to his left, slid a steel syringe from under the mattress of the emperor-sized bed. He held the tip near her back, dragging out the moment. Soon she would feel something. Very soon.

Then it would begin.

Chapter 8

The heat was like an open-air oven, even though night had fallen. I could hear a plane’s engine revving. The odour of jet fuel filled the air. The inspector was striding towards a gleaming black Renault Espace with darkened windows, which stood beside a ‘No Parking’ sign.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked loudly.

‘You will see,’ was his nonchalant reply. He held the Espace’s door open for me. His colleagues were a few paces behind me. Did they think I was going to run? Did they think I’d done something?

Or had Alek done something outrageously stupid? Was I going to be implicated in something illegal that I knew nothing about?

‘This is quite a welcoming committee,’ I said.

‘Hagia Sophia is one of our national treasures,’ said the inspector, as he put his seat belt on.

‘Anything to do with it involves our national security, especially these days. I’m sure you understand. All deaths there must be fully explained and accounted for.’ He sounded firm, and suspicious. About what I had no idea, but he was not in the least bit ashamed of it.

I belted myself in.

‘How is London?’ he said. ‘I saw you had another riot.’

‘It was good when I left.’

‘I like London. I have a cousin there. Such a great city.’ He tapped the driver on his shoulder. The car moved off with a squeal.

‘I thought you were going to be British, Mr Ryan,’ said the inspector. ‘But your accent is American, I think.’ He looked puzzled.

‘My father was American. My mother was English. We stayed in England until I was ten, then we lived in upstate New York. I’m back in England twelve years now.’

‘An English mother and an American father.’ He repeated what I’d said, as if he found it amusing. If he was trying to annoy me he was doing a good job.

‘That’s what I said. I like Macy’s and Harrods. And I’m proud of it.’ I’d used that line before. And I didn’t mind giving him more from where that came from.

He looked me up and down, then changed the subject. ‘Were you close to your colleague, Mr Ryan?’

‘We were friends.’ I stared back at him. I had nothing to hide.

He stared out the window. Letting me stew, most likely.

The motorway we joined a few minutes later had five lanes. The headlights streaming towards us were like strings of pearls.

The reservations I’d had about coming to Istanbul seemed justified now. What the hell had happened to the contact from the Consulate who was supposed to meet me? And where were we going?

‘You were Mr Zegliwski’s manager, weren’t you?’ asked the inspector a minute later. The question had an aggressive undertone to it, as if he was trying to find someone to take responsibility for something.

‘Yes, I am. That’s why I’m here, to find out what happened to him.’ I’d worked hard on this project. I’d spent months on research. Alek had too. There was no way I was going to allow this guy to dump anything on me, or on the Institute.

‘And you haven’t been told what happened Alek?’ His eyes gleamed in the semi-darkness.

‘Just that he’s dead. That I’m supposed to identify his body.’ There was still a slim chance that it wasn’t Alek they’d found, that he was in a coma in some hospital. I clung to it.

The inspector opened his window. Warm soggy air poured in. It was well after 9:00 PM, but still as hot as midday on the hottest summer day in London.

‘It’s a little hot,’ I said.

‘Not too much,’ he replied. ‘This is cool by Istanbul standards.’

‘Are you going to tell me what happened?’ I asked, louder than I expected to. I wiped off a rivulet of sweat running down my cheek.

I could smell musky aftershave.

‘Your colleague’s been murdered, effendi,’ he whispered. Occasional beeps and the drone of cars speeding around us almost drowned his voice out.

I stared back at him. I felt empty, numb. I’d assumed Alek had died in an unfortunate accident.

‘I’m sorry for the bad news.’

I looked at his face, waited for his nose to grow.

‘Why are you treating me like a criminal, when my friend’s been murdered?’

He didn’t answer. He just kept staring at me. His eyes were bloodshot. He had a thin white scar on the side of his forehead.

‘Did your colleague have enemies?’

I shook my head. ‘Are you going to tell me how it happened?’ I said.

For a split second, I saw disdain in his expression, then it became impassive again.

The traffic reverberations around us were like a muzzled growl. Warm air sliced menacingly through the car. Anger rose up inside me. I had to close my eyes to calm myself, start breathing deeply. I had to be careful. Letting off steam into this guy’s face would probably only see me end up in a prison cell.

Memories of Alek flashed through my head. Why the hell had he been murdered?

‘Is it a secret?’ I said.

‘Later, effendi, later.’ His tone softened.

We passed a conga line of minibuses. There must have been fifty of them. Each had a blue circular logo on its side, the outline of the minarets and unmistakable dome of Hagia Sophia.

I’d been to Istanbul twice before. Alek had been even more times. The grey crust of buildings that flows to each horizon gives the city an anthill intensity. It’s what you get, I suppose, for having a population of almost fourteen million. No city in Europe has ever been bigger.