The Istanbul Puzzle

For months after it happened I fantasised about her walking through our front door. And I used to hope, despite everything logical, that I’d wake up one day to find her beside me again.

Tragedy warps everything.

I was slipping away, on the edge of consciousness, back in London, walking towards Buckingham Palace. A man in a long white shirt carrying a pitcher of water was coming towards me. I turned my head. Somebody was behind me, way in the distance. I knew who it was. But she was so far away. I turned, ran, stumbled.

I woke up, sickly unease rising through me. The floor-to-ceiling curtains were shadows in the darkness. I could make out the vague outlines of the gilt-edged prints of Ottoman Istanbul that hung in a row on the wall, like Janissaries, the Sultan’s guards, standing to attention.

Then I felt something move. There was something in the bed with me.

Bloody hell! I swung my fist, slammed it into the mattress, bounced up out of the bed, scrambled for the light switch by the bathroom door.

The room flooded with jaundiced light.

There was nothing. Nothing in the bed. Nothing under it. Was I going mad?

Relief soaked through me. Had it been an animal, a spider, something like that? My skin crawled. I should never have left the window open.

The phone rang.

‘Mr Ryan?’ A woman’s voice, anxious. It was the receptionist who’d given me that envelope. I sat on the bed, cradling the telephone against my bare shoulder. The gossamer breeze from the window felt like water running over my skin.

‘Yes?’

‘Two men are on the way up to see you, Mr Ryan.’

‘What?’

The line went dead. I could hear a truck grinding its gears outside.

For a second I didn’t understand why she’d called. Then it came to me. She was warning me.

A sharp knock – rat tat tat – sounded from the door. The do-not-disturb sign hanging on the doorknob vibrated.

That was quick. Then the knock came again. It was even more insistent this time.

I walked over to the door, put my eye to the viewer. Nothing. Just blackness. Was it broken?

‘Come on, Mr Ryan,’ an officious female voice called out. Someone English.

‘Hold on,’ I replied. I grabbed a fresh T-shirt from my bag and pulled it over my head. An even sharper knock sounded.

Rat-tat-tat-tat.

‘Coming.’ What the hell was the hurry? I pulled on my chinos, pushed my feet into suede moccasins.

Another knock.

RAT TAT-TAT TAT-TAT.

‘Come on!’ She sounded petulant, as if she hadn’t heard my replies, or had heard, but didn’t think I was moving fast enough.

I jerked the door open but held my foot against it, just in case I needed to close it in a hurry.

An attractive-looking woman was standing outside. She was in her late twenties, I guessed, and was wearing a tight high-necked black T-shirt. Her face was symmetrical, her eyes dark green, serious, her black hair pulled back tight. She had a thin gold chain around her neck. Despite her slim frame, she was clearly someone who could look after herself.

And she was holding an identity card in my face. I saw a severe-looking face and an official stamp, a triangle with a crown and the letters EIIR above it, and the words ‘British Consulate’ below. Then the card vanished before I had a chance to read any more. I stood up a little straighter. And then it came to me. This was the woman from one of Alek’s photos.

‘Come with me, Mr Ryan. Now.’ She glanced towards the lifts.

‘There are some people on the way up that you don’t want to meet. They were demanding to know your room number down at reception. You have to come with me. I mean it.’ She looked up and down the corridor, as if expecting to be interrupted at any moment. I heard a metallic thrum as the lift rose towards us. Then there was a creaking noise. It had stopped at a lower floor, maybe the one below us.

I could smell her perfume. It was faint, sweet.

‘Did you know Alek?’

A flicker of hesitation crossed her face.

‘My name’s Isabel Sharp. I was Alek’s liaison officer at the Consulate. Come on, Mr Ryan. If you don’t want to end up like him.’

I felt my back pocket. My wallet was there. I could get another room pass. I was dressed. I had my shoes on.

‘OK.’

She moved quickly. My room door closed behind me with a clunk. She was already halfway to a door down the corridor with an ‘Exit’ sign above it.

She held the door open for me, closed it after I’d passed through.

‘I thought I was gonna be met at the airport?’ I said, still unsure why I was following her.

‘That was a little misunderstanding,’ she said. ‘But I’m here now.’ She started down the carpeted stairs. I followed.

I was going to ask her why she was moving so fast, when I heard a juddering bang above us, as if someone had slammed a door open.

‘They’re coming,’ she said. I barely heard her. A muffled clatter of footsteps echoed from above.

She took the next set of stairs in two jumps.

Someone shouted. Then a crisp popping sound filled the stairwell. It was accompanied by a shrill pinging near me. A rain of concrete chips and dust fell around my head. Something had hit the wall above me!

‘Bastards,’ she said, in a low voice, as if she was talking to herself. I was barely keeping up with her.

My heart was pounding.

Something struck the metal handrail behind me. It squealed. I jerked my hand away from it.

Adrenaline pumped through me, tingling every muscle. The hair on my body stood up straight. My scalp felt tight.

I was taking three steps at a time, sometimes four. I could feel the rough concrete under the thin carpet as I landed on each step. Then Isabel almost fell. I put a hand under her arm, held her up. She regained her footing. We kept going.

The sound of running feet, voices, wasn’t far above us now. They were catching up. I looked behind. All I could see was a shadowy blur coming down.

Isabel’s face was pale.

The backs of my legs were straining. Who the hell were they?

At the bottom of the stairwell I overtook Isabel, barged through the fire exit door, held it open for her. The deafening noise of an alarm rang out above our heads.

Then she was sprinting like an Olympic runner down the deserted concrete laneway in front of us. I went after her, my lungs dragging in air. She was heading for a black Range Rover, a giant cockroach resting on oversized tyres.

The Range Rover’s lights flickered as we came up to it. For a moment I thought there might be someone in it.

‘Get in,’ she roared, jerking open the driver’s door.

As I slammed the passenger door closed, a sense of security enveloped me. Then I heard muffled shouts. I turned, looked through the back window. Two huge guys, one of them bald, had emerged from the fire exit door. The bald guy lifted his arm, pointed a gun at us.

There was a noise like fire crackers snapping.

‘Go!’ I shouted.

The engine of the Range Rover growled. I heard a whoosh, fans starting.

We jumped forward. There was a loud ding. I looked around.

The back window had taken a hit. The glass had a star in it now. Then another. But it didn’t shatter. We had bulletproof glass.

‘Put on your seat belt,’ she shouted.

A brick wall loomed. She swerved.

‘They’ll need a missile to stop us.’ She sounded triumphant.

We slid sideways, tyres squealing, onto an empty street. Exhilaration filled me. I was glad to be alive.

‘These diplomatic cars are worth every penny,’ she said. She was holding the steering wheel so tightly I could see her knuckles protruding through her pale skin.

‘Who they hell were they?’ I shouted.

‘I think a better question is, what the hell have you been up to that they want you so bad?’

‘I have no idea,’ I shouted. I took a deep breath, released my grip on the armrest, peeled my hand slowly from the plastic. I’d been holding it way too tight. I stared out the back window. There was no one coming after us. Isabel squealed around another turn. My shoulder banged against the window.

‘You better thank your guardian angel I didn’t get a taxi tonight,’ she continued.

I settled back in my seat, rubbed my elbow. It throbbed lightly. The inside of the Range Rover was a cocoon of black leather and brushed aluminium. A shiny logo sat at the centre of the polished walnut steering wheel. The vehicle was cavernous and it smelled of leather.

We turned the next corner a lot slower. Then, after examining the rear view mirror, Isabel sat back in her seat.

‘Do you have any idea what a bitch this car is to park?’ she said.

I was still thinking about how close the bastards had come. I looked at Isabel. She had tiny gold studs in her earlobes. They shone as we passed a street light.

She looked as if she’d done this sort of thing before. Only a few hairs had escaped from her ponytail. And they were flying gently in the breeze from the air conditioning.

The Range Rover growled as she changed gears. The steep side street we were on was empty. Pools of darkness crowded around lonely street lights. We bounced through a pothole.

‘You’re in good shape,’ she said, glancing in my direction. ‘You live in your gym, right?’

‘No. I free dive, run most days, but not usually for my life. Does this sort of stuff happen a lot to you?’

She shook her head.

‘No. Mostly I help businessmen and holidaymakers. And I rescue the unlucky from police custody.’

‘What do you think that lot were after?’

Her expression hardened, as if I’d insulted her. ‘Mr Ryan. This has to do with you and your colleague, Alek.’

‘Well, I’ve no idea why anyone would come after me like that. Has Istanbul gone mad?’

‘Not at all.’

I felt an ache in my arm. I rubbed it, moved it in its socket. Nothing seemed to be broken, but it was stiff and painful.

We stopped at a traffic light.

‘You obviously can’t go back to the hotel. I’ll take you somewhere else.’ It sounded as if she was going to find a kennel for a sick dog.

‘I can look after myself.’

‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Mr Ryan. Didn’t they teach you that at MIT?’ She looked at me, then at the traffic lights.

‘No, I was taught to look for explanations. And I still don’t have one for what just happened.’

‘Mr Ryan, when people get shot at here, it’s usually for a good reason, because of drugs or something worse.’

‘I’m not into drugs or something worse.’

She didn’t speak for a few seconds. ‘What about this project you and Alek were working on? Could it be something to do with that?’

‘I don’t think so. The project’s no big deal. There’s nothing controversial about it at all. We’re doing photographic work in Hagia Sophia for God’s sake. That’s it. What kind of joker is going to start killing because of that?’

‘Well, you’ve trodden on someone’s toes. Those thugs were prepared to kill you. And me, by the way, which I don’t appreciate one bit.’

As we drove on, she checked the mirror at regular intervals. My breathing had just about returned to normal, but my leg muscles were tight, as if I’d run a marathon, and my stomach felt weird, all hollow, as if I’d retched, even though I hadn’t.

‘Are you into antiquities, Mr Ryan? This place is awash with them. Maybe you have something those guys want, something of value.’ There was a suspicious edge to her voice.

‘You’re on the wrong track.’ Her insistence that all this was something to do with me was pissing me off.

‘We don’t deal in or smuggle antiquities at the Institute. I have nothing those guys could want.’ I made a show of patting my body.

My fingers touched the USB storage device in my trouser pocket. For a moment I considered not mentioning it, but I decided to take it out, to show her how little I’d picked up in the few hours I’d been here.

I pulled out the storage device, waved it dismissively in the air.

‘This is the only thing I’ve been given since I came here. It was in an envelope with some photos for Alek at the hotel. I don’t think they’d try to kill us for this.’

She reached for the USB key. ‘We’ll be the judge of that.’

I swung it away. ‘This is the property of my Institute.’ I hadn’t even looked at what was on it.

‘Give it to me, Mr Ryan.’ We were travelling through an obviously poorer district now. The houses crowded in on each side.

‘Or perhaps I should drop you here, if you’re going to be so uncooperative.’ She stopped at a corner, as if she meant to let me out.

‘I could outrun them better, without you holding me back,’ I said.

‘But their aim might improve.’

‘Tell me a good reason I should give it to you.’

She let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Look, beheadings are long out of fashion in Turkey. If they’ve started up again, there has to be something serious going down. We need to follow up anything that could help us find out why Alek was murdered, and who did it. That requires you to give me your full cooperation. Now please, can I have it?’ She held out her hand.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘But I want a copy of whatever’s on it. Agreed?’

She hesitated, then nodded.

I handed over the device.

Chapter 11

Arap Anach stood on the balcony of his suite. In front of him the lights of the buildings crowding around the Golden Horn were cobwebs of diamonds.

The hem of his midnight-blue silk robe wafted in the breeze. There was an angry shout. He looked down beyond the black ironwork balcony. Istanbul in early August was a hot and airless city at ground level. Only those with expensive apartments or hotel suites high up felt the cooling breezes that glided over the rooftops.

Far below, in the thin light of a street lamp, a beggar jerked in the dust. People were gathering. Someone shouted. Malach watched, as if observing the death of an ant.

The sliding door behind him opened with a swish. He turned. Malach came through, bowed and spoke in a quiet voice.

‘They failed,’ he said. ‘The car he escaped in had CD plates. It’s registered to the British Consulate. We got photos from his room, and an iPad too.’ He handed the photos to Arap.

‘Don’t turn the iPad on,’ said Arap. He held the photos up. ‘You didn’t get his phone?’

‘No. But we know his name. He came from England yesterday.’

‘Look for him, but discreetly. And finish the clean up. I want no traces for anyone to find.’

Malach nodded, turned, went back out through the door, closed it with a click behind him.

Arap ran his hands along the balcony, caressing it. Then he gripped it, hard.

Copies of the pictures that Greek boy had taken could be in the hands of the British already. It wouldn’t be easy for them to work out where they had been taken, but it wouldn’t be impossible either.

But would they understand the significance of what they’d found, bother to follow it up? Maybe. They weren’t stupid. All these loose ends would have to be sorted out quickly.

Five years of planning could not be wasted. It had taken too long to get to this point. Everything was almost ready.

He remembered the day he’d started down this road. The day he’d discovered his father’s dismembered corpse in the master bedroom of that gaudy villa in Austria.

His father had deserved what he got. Anyone who spent their time on the Cote d’Azur in a drugged haze, squandering their inheritance, deserved a painful end. The only useful thing he’d taught him was a lesson very few fathers thought it necessary to teach their children.

Arap’s own tastes had been corrupted a long time ago. He’d known that since he’d raped a girl near his school in England. The local paper had been full of it. Why they’d cared so much about a nobody, an insignificant larva, he still had no idea. The English were far too squeamish.

That slippery wisp of a girl hadn’t been his first taste of forbidden pleasure either. He’d lost his virginity when he was ten. His father’s friends had laughed as they’d pretended to strangle him on a yacht in the Aegean, as they took pleasure from his body. That had been an experience he would never forget.

What his father told him afterwards had stuck in his mind; when you’ve done things that can never be forgiven, you become free, because you can never go back, never undo them.

And he’d been right. He was free, and about to make his mark in a way his father had never contemplated. He was going to do something such as his ancestors had done centuries ago. His inherited estates and titles going back a thousand years made it all possible. There were few others who had the ambition, money and connections to make this thing happen. His time was coming.

His phone beeped. He picked it up from the marble table. A scrambled message icon was flashing. He pressed at it. Letters scrolled in front of him.

The siren of an ambulance sounded below. He put the phone down, peered over the railing. Shadows were milling around the ambulance. All the powerless larvae.

Everything they’d known was about to change. There were just a few things to fix now, and Malach could take care of those, easily. He’d proved long ago that he enjoyed such tasks.

Chapter 12

We arrived at one of the British Consulate’s guest apartments after midnight, and it was past 1:00 AM before I closed my eyes in one of the spartan, marble-floored bedrooms.

I didn’t sleep well. A few hours after drifting off I sat up and looked around, memories of being shot at playing through my mind. I felt angry as the early morning sunlight filtered through the blinds. The air in the room was humid and already heavy. I’d turned off the air conditioning unit by the window before going to sleep.

One question had lodged in my mind. Were those bastards still looking for me?

The apartment had a balcony with a stunning view. Not surprising, I suppose, seeing as how it was on the tenth floor and overlooking where the glittering Sea of Marmara met the choppy Bosphorus channel.

I had a shower in the small bathroom attached to my room. I stayed longer than usual, as the tension of the last twelve hours dissipated into the water. When I was dry and dressed I went out onto the balcony.

The far shore of the Bosphorus, the Asian side of Istanbul, literally another continent, swam far off, in the early morning heat haze. Directly in front of me a variety of ships, freighters and tankers were making their way in two distinct lines, like foam-flecked water insects, travelling into and out of the sun-dappled channel of the Bosphorus.

Isabel had told me the night before that the apartment block overlooked the old Byzantine port of Bucoleon, the sea port that had served the Roman Emperor Justinian’s imperial palace. The shimmering sea and infinite azure sky must have been as alluring back then as they were now.

As I was admiring the view, Isabel joined me. She was carrying a tray with croissants, butter, jam, coffee, warm milk and pale brown sugar.

Her black hair was undone, flowing over her shoulders, but she still looked businesslike. And her expression was serious.

‘Did you sleep?’ she said.

‘Sure, every time I get shot at, almost kidnapped, I sleep like a baby.’

‘It’ll make a good story for your grandchildren.’

‘If I ever have any.’ I poured coffee for the both of us, then tasted mine. It was strong, black, just what I needed. I ate a croissant.

‘What about the police? Are you going to call them?’ I asked, as I poured myself some more coffee. I’d been wondering whether we should have reported what had happened already.

‘We’ll tell them at the appropriate time. What we’re concerned about first is your security.’

‘Why didn’t you shoot back at those bastards last night?’

She was gazing out to sea.

‘I don’t carry a gun, Sean. I’m not James bloody Bond. This is not a movie.’

I could smell salty sea air as a welcome breeze wafted up to us.

‘Having pitched battles in the street isn’t the way we operate here.’

‘Have you any new ideas about who those guys were?’

‘No, and we don’t jump to conclusions. Everyone with a grudge is taking their chances these days. Perhaps you have some new idea?’

‘You gotta be joking,’ I said. ‘That was like Grand Theft: Istanbul last night.’

She stared at a giant red oil tanker that had left a flotilla of ships moored out in the Sea of Marmara. The tanker was proceeding slowly towards the channel of the Bosphorus. Isabel sat down on one of the cushioned wicker chairs facing out to sea and pulled her long legs up under her, as if she was about to do yoga. Her black sweatpants and skintight black T-shirt made her look like a gym instructor. I stayed standing, taking in the view.

‘Some tankers wait a week to get through these straits,’ she said.

We sat in silence for a minute.

‘I didn’t expect that last night,’ I said.

‘The Turks are among the kindest people in the world, Sean. They’re welcoming, warm and giving, almost to a fault.’ She stretched her arms above her head. ‘What happened to you I have never seen happen to any visitor here.’ She sipped at her coffee.

‘We’re very concerned, Sean.’ She put her coffee cup down. ‘Alek’s death has been linked to a threat against the United Kingdom.’

‘What?’ I recoiled.

She stared out to sea. The heat was growing stronger by the minute, as the sun climbed in the sky. Home felt a long way away.

‘There’s a video clip on the Internet already. It shows Alek’s beheading.’ She was talking fast now. ‘It also contains a threat to bring Armageddon to London.’ She paused, as if to give time for what she’d said to sink in.

‘We’ve had a lot of this stuff in the past year, what with everything that’s going on. The nuts like to come out together. So we won’t be panicking, but we have to follow up every threat. So I need to know if there’s anything else you can tell me, which might help us to find the people who murdered Alek.’ She turned to look at me.

I stared back at her. Was this for real? Had Alek gotten himself caught up in something totally stupid?

‘If I knew anything that might help, I’d tell you. I would.’

‘I hope so.’

She stood up, went inside. In less than half a minute she was back, holding some photographs.

She placed the prints on the glass-topped dining table.

‘These images were on that storage device,’ she said.

I bent over, looked at them. There was a page of thumbnails and two images printed out full size. The thumbnails were images of mosaics in Hagia Sophia. I scanned them quickly. The only ones not clearly from Hagia Sophia were the two that had been blown up and the photo of Alek with Isabel.

The two photos she had printed out full size were the ones I’d left in the hotel room, which had been in the envelope. They must have meant something for Alek to have had them printed out. But what?

‘Can you tell me anything about these photos?’ Isabel pointed at the two prints.

I looked at them closely. ‘They’re not part of our project. That’s all I can say.’

She pulled one of the chairs forward and sat down.

‘OK, let’s go back to the beginning,’ she said. ‘Did your project include work in any excavations or tunnels under Hagia Sophia?’

‘No, not all.’ I was sitting opposite her, facing the sun.

‘Then why does this picture look like it was taken under- ground?’

‘I have no idea. Our project is about the mosaics that are on public view. And anyway, we did a lot of research on Hagia Sophia and there are no crypts under it, nothing like this.’ I pointed at the pictures. ‘There’s just a few drainage tunnels. No one has ever found mosaics under Hagia Sophia.’

‘So where were these photos taken?’

I didn’t have an answer.

She stretched her arms up high, as if she was warming up for a yoga session.