Chapter 19

  Even though it was cold, Nar felt so much better wearing her thin, satin dress than she had done in that heavy jumpsuit. It was the dead time of night, almost 4 a.m., and she was with a Special Forces officer who looked about half her age. They kept low as they ran underneath the hotel’s windows, Nar scanning the area continuously for her discarded shoes. They were fake Jimmy Choos and she loved them. What she wasn’t quite so keen on was the idea of being ‘debriefed’. The officer who had changed places with her in the kitchen had passed her on to this kid who had told her that she had to be debriefed about her time in the hotel.

  There was a lot to tell but really Nar had to get back to work. Even at 4 a.m. there were still punters on the streets and, apart from anything else, the other girls would be wondering where she’d got to. But she had no choice in the matter. This kid was taking her to Sergeant Farsakoğlu and her superiors and that was that. As they passed underneath the windows of the bar, she was tempted to look in and see if that dead body that had started this whole adventure off was still there. But she resisted the urge. She still looked for her shoes but she didn’t find them. Nar eventually came to the conclusion that some thieving bastard must have picked them up and taken them home.

  When she finally reached the pub opposite the Pera Palas (where she sometimes took the odd drink or two) Nar immediately recognised the man they all knew as Hüseyin Hikmet. Not that he recognised her. He just looked horrified. Nar said to him, ‘Oh, grow up. You know that given half a chance you would.’

  ‘So you are Nar.’

  She turned and saw a fat man smoking a cigar standing behind her.

  ‘I am Commissioner Ardıç,’ he said. ‘We have a lot to thank you for and, I am afraid, a lot of questions to ask you.’

  Over Ardıç’s shoulder, Nar saw Ayşe Farsakoğlu and smiled, but the policewoman did not smile back. In fact she looked as if she was about to cry. Nar extended her hand to Ardıç, which he, rather haltingly, shook. ‘No problem,’ Nar said. ‘Only two conditions.’

  ‘Conditions?’

  ‘This is a bar, so I’d like a vodka and Fanta, and I want to be able to smoke in here,’ she said.

  Ardıç put his cigar into his mouth and puffed. Then he took it out and said to one of the police officers across the room, ‘Yıldız, will you get this lady a vodka and Fanta now.’

  Nar smiled. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘You’re welcome.’ Ardıç guided Nar over to a table by one of the windows overlooking the Pera Palas and introduced her to a thin, fit-looking man in his fifties. This was Commander İpek. He looked more than a little stunned, but Nar smiled at him anyway, even though he visibly cringed.

  Once her vodka and Fanta had arrived, Nar took a very long slug, lit up a cigarette and then said, ‘So what do you want to know?’

  ‘Firstly, Nar,’ Ardıç said, ‘I’d like to know whether at any time while you were in the hotel you heard anyone say the name Muhammed Ersoy?’

  Nar thought. It was a name she knew, although she didn’t know where from. She was pretty sure it wasn’t from the Pera Palas. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Why?’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mmm. Not important at the moment,’ Ardıç said. ‘Now what about this fake blood?’

  ‘Those people, the . . . the gunmen, and woman, were supposed to have killed some of the guests when they first arrived,’ Nar said. ‘Before I got in there. But then later your Inspector İkmen got really angry with the leader about the fact that the blood that was supposed to have come from the victims was fake.’

  ‘Do you know how Inspector İkmen knew about this?’

  ‘There’s a couple of doctors with him. One of them told him.’

  ‘And did you see the gunman’s response?’ Commander İpek asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What was it?’

  Nar took another gulp from her glass, dragged on her cigarette and said, ‘Nothing. Didn’t say a thing. Although I can tell you that the Kalashnikov I had was loaded with real ammunition, not blanks. I did my military service. I know these things.’

  ‘But the gunman wasn’t disturbed.’

  ‘Nah! But then they’re all the same, aren’t they, that type?’ Nar said.

  ‘What type?’

  ‘Puritans,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean by puritans?’ Ardıç asked. ‘Do you mean religious fundamentalists?’ Hüseyin Hikmet seemed to be one of those.

  It was a question that Nar had been asking herself the whole time she was with the gunmen. On the one hand they had discouraged the guests from drinking alcohol. With the exception of one young man she’d seen in the kitchen when she and Ayşe had first got in there, they didn’t smoke, and none of the gang had, while she had been looking at them, eaten or drunk anything. On the other hand, they hadn’t made any religious or nationalistic pronouncements and the woman she had shared guard duty with in the ballroom had actively admired some of the female guests’ clothes. She had also said that a woman should only wear diamonds.

  ‘To be honest, I don’t know,’ Nar said. She relayed her thoughts and observations.

  There was a pause.

  Then Commander İpek turned to Commissioner Ardıç and said, ‘Do you know what this reminds me of?’

  ‘No. What does it remind you of?’

  Commander İpek bit his bottom lip and then he said, ‘That film. The one where people in an office block are taken hostage but what it is really all about is a robbery. It’s American, quite old—’

  ‘Die Hard,’ Nar said. ‘I loved that film! Although I didn’t like the bit where Bruce Willis cut his feet open on all that glass, that was horrible.’

  ‘It was based upon a misdirection, a crime committed to cover another crime.’

  ‘A robbery,’ Ardıç said. ‘Mmm.’ Then he looked at Nar again and said, ‘Did you, during your travels around that hotel, ever see a golden samovar?’

  Nar frowned. ‘A golden samovar? What, you mean made of actual gold?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’d remember that if I’d seen it.’ Then she laughed. ‘I might even have had it away myself!’

  Mehmet Süleyman watched Lale Aktar go with one of the gunmen. Down to the toilets again. The stress was making her feel sick. He turned to İkmen. ‘We need some sort of break,’ he said.

  Usually during the course of an investigation they had access to a range of media, forensic evidence and the benefit of being able to converse freely. They also had time. But not here.

  ‘The only person we can definitively place at the scene is Lale Aktar,’ İkmen said. ‘But I am extremely wary of pointing the finger at her because she is far too obvious a choice. This is, after all, a game to these people. And besides, if Lale Aktar did kill Söner Erkan, we have to accept that she is one of these people.’

  ‘You don’t think she is?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. She’s not being entirely straight with us, I feel,’ İkmen said. ‘But I don’t think she killed the boy.’

  ‘Unless it’s a double bluff.’ Süleyman turned away briefly and then said to the cameraman whose head was almost in his face, ‘Can you back off!’

  The man pulled away. Süleyman shook his head in frustration.

  ‘I’m going to interview all those people who were out of the ballroom when Mrs Aktar found the body,’ İkmen said.

  ‘The actors.’

  ‘No, not the actors,’ İkmen said. He picked up Krikor Sarkissian’s guest list from the table and looked at it. ‘Anyone who isn’t an actor.’

  ‘Hoping to find what?’ Arto Sarkissian said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ İkmen replied.

  ‘But if Lale Aktar didn’t kill Söner Erkan and she didn’t see anyone else in her room . . .’ Arto continued.

  ‘The room was dark,’ Süleyman said.

  ‘And we only have Mrs Aktar’s word that she didn’t see anyone in her room,’ İkmen said.

  ‘I still can’t work out how she got blood on her shoes,’ Arto said.

  ‘Yes, blood does seem to be a bit of a problem for Mrs Aktar all round.’

  Everyone except Hovsep Pars looked at İkmen.

  Süleyman frowned. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning that I need to talk to quite a few people in a short space of time and then I need to speak to Mrs Aktar,’ İkmen answered obscurely.

  İzzet Melik got back into his car and picked up his mobile phone. The pretty Bosphorus village of Yeniköy was peaceful and most of the houses were dark, with the exception of the massive yalı he had just been inside.

  He called Ardıç. ‘Yiannis Istefanopoulos is not at home in Yeniköy,’ he said. ‘I’ve just spoken to his housekeeper and I’ve had a look around the place too.’

  ‘Do you know where he is?’ Ardıç asked.

  ‘According to the housekeeper, he’s at a function at the Pera Palas Hotel,’ İzzet said.

  He heard Ardıç draw in a deep breath. ‘So both Istefanopoulos and his samovar are in the hotel.’

  ‘Potentially, yes.’

  ‘All right.’ Ardıç cut the connection.

  İzzet turned the key in the ignition and put the car into first gear. Then he stopped. He couldn’t really see to drive properly because his eyes were so full of tears. He had so wanted to marry Ayşe! He had so looked forward to it! But if she was still in love with Mehmet Süleyman then it was all over. It had to be. He couldn’t share Ayşe with anyone.

  The Pera Palas Hotel concierge, Saffet Güler, had been behind his desk in reception when Söner Erkan was murdered. The first thing he’d known about it was when he saw Lale Aktar running down the stairs into the Kubbeli Saloon covered in blood. He’d taken over from the previous concierge at 10 p.m. But he didn’t know anything about any golden samovar.

  ‘Do you keep records of deliveries made to guests?’ İkmen asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Saffet Güler said. ‘And whenever I come on shift I always check to see whether there are any outstanding deliveries either to guests or to hotel staff.’

  ‘You check on computer?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘I need to see your system,’ İkmen said.

  The leader of the gunmen approached them. ‘I’ll take you out to the lobby,’ he said.

  İkmen, Güler and the gunman left the Kubbeli Saloon.

  Having questioned and then dispensed with Rauf Özal, the car dealer from Nişantaşı, who had been having an unauthorised cigarette in the Patisserie de Pera – from where he claimed to have seen Saffet Güler the concierge – Süleyman and the Sarkissians were now interrogating a friend. David Bonomo was a secretary at the office of the Chief Rabbi of İstanbul. He was someone they had all known for many years.

  ‘There’s no polite way of putting this,’ David said as he looked up at the man with the camera on his helmet. ‘I have irritable bowel syndrome. Usually I take a dose of anti-diarrhoea medication before I go out to eat, but this time . . .’ He shrugged. ‘While that poor boy was dying upstairs, I was down in the toilet thinking I was dying.’

  Krikor Sarkissian shook his head impatiently. ‘You should get that attended to,’ he said. ‘You can’t go on like that. You’ve had it for years!’

  David Bonomo ignored him. Krikor meant well but he didn’t know much, if anything, about his affliction. ‘I was completely oblivious to anything except my own discomfort,’ Bonomo said to Süleyman. ‘By the time I got out of the toilet the whole place was awash with masked men. I wasn’t even around when Mrs Aktar came down the stairs covered in blood.’ He looked over at her, but Lale Aktar was asleep. Whispering, he said, ‘She doesn’t look well.’

  ‘No.’ Süleyman looked at the novelist, slumped in a chair beside an equally unconscious Hovsep Pars. It was clear that writing novels about crime in no way prepared one for the real thing. Süleyman now felt a little bit ashamed of the fact that when the murder mystery evening had started he had been so anxious to beat her.

  ‘David, did you see or hear anyone else in the toilet when you were in there?’ Krikor Sarkissian asked.

  David Bonomo thought. He was a spare, hawk-like man who always looked up when he was seriously considering something. ‘Mmm,’ he said. He looked down again. ‘I don’t remember having any company in there. But, as I said before, I was in something of a state.’

  ‘You think that would prevent you from being aware of other people around you?’

  David Bonomo looked up again. ‘Well . . .’

  ‘Forgive me if I’m wrong.’ Arto Sarkissian leaned forward in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. ‘But I would, probably in my ignorance, imagine that if one was suffering from gastric “issues”, shall we say, one would be acutely aware of, and nervous about, other people being in one’s immediate vicinity. One would want not just a cubicle but a whole toilet block to oneself – I imagine.’

  David Bonomo nodded. ‘There is some truth in that, Arto,’ he said. ‘A lot of truth.’ He looked up at the ceiling again. ‘And actually, in spite of being in some pain, I was quite relaxed – in a way,’ he said.

  ‘Does that mean that you were probably alone, David?’ Süleyman asked.

  ‘Probably. I couldn’t swear to it. But that does seem likely.’

  ‘And you definitely did not see my assistant Burak?’ Krikor said.

  ‘No.’

  Krikor Sarkissian looked at Mehmet Süleyman. They both knew what the other one was thinking. Eventually it was Krikor who broke the silence. ‘So,’ he said, ‘shall I go and speak to Burak?’

  But then Çetin İkmen returned with the hotel concierge. The policeman looked at them all and said, ‘The man who Saffet Bey here came in to replace, the concierge known as Ali Yalçın, left no record of anyone delivering anything. My question, gentlemen, and lady, is did he just forget or was he working with whoever these people are?’

  Chapter 20

  All they could hear were people’s voices but they were muffled and diffuse. The officer inside the hotel hadn’t actually managed to engage the gunmen in anything like a conversation. They’d told him to go places and he’d gone, to do things and he’d done them. He had made contact with the novelist Lale Aktar and she had said that, somehow, she would let İkmen know that Nar was out and he was in.

  Ardıç and Commander İpek sat beside the technician listening in to the officer’s microphone, both looking very subdued. But neither of them spoke. Everyone in the pub was quiet now. Even Nar had stopped trying to flirt because time was moving on and everyone knew that it was also running out. İzzet Melik, recently returned from Yeniköy, was careful not to sit or stand anywhere near his fiancée. Ayşe Farsakoğlu was angry and upset and he didn’t know how any of this was making him feel about her.

  Ardıç looked at the technician who shook his head. Ardıç sighed and then stood up. Everybody looked at him. He cleared his throat.

  ‘It is our understanding that Inspectors İkmen and Süleyman have until sunrise to find out who killed a young man in one of the hotel bedrooms,’ he said. ‘However, Ersu Bey, the hotel maître d’, has told us that if the gunmen want to get out of the Pera Palas unchallenged they will have to do that before six a.m. when the day shift arrive. Now we don’t think that anyone witnessed this killing, our officers have no access to forensic or outside help of any sort and if they don’t get it right they will be killed. It is now,’ he squinted down at his watch, ‘four thirty and so time is short. Unless İkmen and Süleyman have access to information that can conclusively prove that a particular person has unequivocally killed that boy then whatever name they eventually give to their captors will be a gamble. I have the utmost faith in my officers but with all due respect to them, as things stand it cannot be anything but a gamble. Further, this “game” these people are playing may well mean that even if our officers do get it right, they might be killed anyway. At some point, we think, they will spring it on İkmen and Süleyman that they will have to have their answer before six a.m. These are unknown and therefore unpredictable people and even though we may like to think that maybe they are not as heavily armed as they seem, we have to assume that they are lethal. I had a discussion with Commander İpek earlier about how we might proceed if we got to this stage, effectively no further forward than we were before the Special Forces officer went in, and we decided then that we would have to prepare to storm the building.’

  Everyone looked grave.

  İpek, standing as well now, said, ‘We have the building surrounded. Now we need to begin a slow process of infiltration. Provided the gunmen are still unaware of the fact that the kitchen door is open, we will proceed through that entrance. The aim is to strategically position a small group of six Special Forces officers in the Pera Palas in order to facilitate entry for the main force which will be deployed on my command. These officers will identify key operatives within the terrorist organisation and prepare to eliminate them once the operation begins. From Sergeant Farsakoğlu we have learned that the gunmen have been sighted in the kitchen. We have also learned that getting from the kitchen up the stairs and into the main public areas of the hotel without being seen is not easy. Floor plans of the hotel have been emailed to us by the managing director of the Pera Palas and we have the expertise of Ersu Bey to guide us. But this is all the information we have. Our man on the inside has been given uninterrupted guard duty in the ballroom away from what we imagine is the central command of a leader-type figure and his entourage, who have taken up positions in the Kubbeli Saloon with the police officers.’ İpek looked over at his own men and said, ‘I’m going to choose six of you – now.’

  Çetin İkmen looked first at the sleeping figure of Hovsep Pars and then at Lale Aktar. Awake now, she smiled at him and he smiled back. Only then did he turn his attention to Burak Fisekçi. ‘Burak Bey,’ he said as the Armenian sat down opposite him, ‘we’re still trying to accurately place everyone in the hotel at the time of young Söner Erkan’s death. You said you were in the toilets downstairs.’