River of The Dead (40 page)

‘I will see the rest of the year out and then I will retire,’ Edibe Taner said to Mehmet Süleyman.

The man from İstanbul took a sip from the glass full of sweet red wine Brother Seraphim had given him and said, ‘Why? Inspector, I know that Brother Gabriel’s death has upset you, but I would urge you not to act too hastily. You’re a really good officer. It’s been . . .’

She put a hand on his arm and smiled. ‘I have been honoured to work with you, Inspector Süleyman,’ she said. ‘I would not have survived the interrogation of Elizabeth Smith had you not been there. I might have killed her. But . . . Gabriel’s death is only part of the story.’

‘Part of the story?’

They were standing outside the huge main entrance to the monastery, smoking. In front of them the vineyards and olive groves belonging to St Sobo’s disappeared into the misty distance that was the border with Syria.

‘Did you notice Lütfü Güneş, the Kurd, back there in the monastery garden?’ Taner said.

‘I noticed he was there,’ Süleyman replied.

‘Talking to clans once powerless in the face of the Kayas,’ she said. ‘He gave us, or rather you, Elizabeth Smith.’

‘Yes.’

‘His friend İbrahim Keser was sleeping with the American and he passed the information to you so that he could destroy her plans.’

‘You really believe Keser told Güneş about the Wormwood Route?’

‘I believe it’s possible,’ she said. ‘Lütfü is an ambitious man. He has a big family. Lütfü Güneş was not one of those who would have profited from the Wormwood Route had the Kayas or even the American controlled it.’

‘You think that he spoke to us behind İbrahim Keser’s back?’ Süleyman said. ‘That he really did in effect use us?’

‘Possibly. I think that Güneş would eventually have killed Keser, as I believe Elizabeth Smith would have done in the end.’

Süleyman, though horrified, knew it could easily be true.

‘All the surviving men who worked for Elizabeth Smith would seem to be abroad,’ he said.

‘With little or no money, not to mention direction,’ Taner said. ‘New masters will, I believe, piece together the elements of the Wormwood Route. Lütfü Güneş the Kurd talks to the clan leaders at Gabriel Saatçi’s funeral and maybe he even talks to men he once knew who now reside abroad, on his mobile telephone.’

‘You really do think he told us about Miss Smith so he could ultimately displace her?’

‘Why not?’ she said. ‘Here in Mardin we are on the route westwards from Afghanistan, a country bulging with heroin that is now almost completely out of control. Miss Smith was right: billions of dollars are at stake here. Not, thankfully, that we will have to endure her “empire” here in the city. Someone else will control and organise our lives now. The new owner of the Route.’

‘Mardin will need someone to fight that,’ Süleyman said.

‘Yes, it will.’ She sighed. ‘Just not me.’

‘Why not?’

She looked up at him and smiled. ‘Because I’m tired,’ she said. ‘Because my heart is broken and because my poor father must teach someone to beat copper and speak to the Sharmeran before he dies.’

He didn’t know how to respond to that and so he just stayed quiet. The reality or otherwise of the snake goddess was not something he felt able to discuss with her or any other Mardin native.

‘I used to have a brother,’ Taner said as she squinted into the distant vistas of the great Mesopotamian Ocean. ‘Like poor Captain Erdur he was in the Jandarma. He died. Now there is only me, and so although our Sharmeran requires a master by tradition she must now settle for a mistress.’ She looked again at Süleyman and said, ‘I want to be who I am. I will not run away and hide under a false name like Hasan Karabulut. I will not kill to be who I am like Murat Lole. I belong to the Sharmeran and I want to be with her. It is my destiny.’

It was also lonely, old and ephemeral. The Cobweb World.

‘Elizabeth Smith thinks that she will be able to use her knowledge of the Wormwood Route to buy her way out of prison,’ Süleyman said.

‘If she does even know it, Lütfü Güneş or someone else will have taken it over by then. The Wormwood Route is just the first, I think, of such “super routes”,’ Edibe Taner said. ‘I think ultimately they will proliferate. Making those around them rich, of course. In the end they will be like leaking buckets: as soon as one hole in one route is discovered, so another one will arise to take its place. That is my prediction.’

‘But the Wormwood Route was foolproof.’

‘Nothing in the end can be perfect,’ she said. ‘Only Allah. The Wormwood Route is mythical and exciting because it is new and because Yusuf Kaya was totally intoxicated by what he had made. But nothing is for ever. It will have its day and people other than ourselves will profit from it.’

He frowned.

‘Even saints die,’ she said. ‘Even if our love for them does not.’

She made to go back into the garden where the wake was taking place, but Süleyman took hold of her wrists and held her back.

‘Edibe,’ he said, ‘you must not give up on the notion of finding love somewhere else some day. You are a very impressive person.’

This was only the second time he’d ever used her first name and he had blurted what he had said because he was neither comfortable nor competent with strong emotion. She appreciated that, even if her reply was not what he had wanted to hear – just because it was so unutterably sad.

‘That’s very kind of you, Mehmet,’ she said, ‘but my heart died along with Gabriel and I will not be seeking to try to revive it. I am already in the Cobweb World. Let the drug men peddle their poison. My life belongs to my Sharmeran now.’

He let her hands go then and she began to walk back through the monastery gates.

‘I will look out for Lütfü Güneş and his associates in the future,’ Süleyman said just before she disappeared. ‘I will not forget. I may belong to the Cobweb World, as your aunt Lucine has told me, but I’ve realised that I do not live there, Edibe, not yet. I will keep you as safe as I can from the poison, Inspector. I promise.’

‘You’re a good man,’ he heard her say from inside the gates. ‘The Sharmeran loves you. I know she does.’

The baby was clearly undersized for his age. He was also bundled up in a really disgusting succession of rags. But he was healthy and when İkmen picked him up he smiled up into his face with such joy that the tired policeman felt himself begin to laugh.

‘I really, really appreciate you bringing him to see me,’ İkmen said as he sat down behind his desk and held young Aslan on his lap. Sophia had just told him that it was her intention to return, with the baby, to Bulgaria.

‘I have mother there,’ she said. ‘Now I no do drugs, I can go to her.’

Like a lot of young eastern European girls, Sophia’s flight from her own country had not resulted in her becoming either wealthy or famous. Since her arrival in İstanbul she’d become a junkie, a prostitute, a thief and the girlfriend of a murderer. At least she had little Aslan, however, a child she seemed genuinely fond of.

‘Do you have money?’ İkmen began.

‘I have train ticket,’ Sophia said. ‘Some lire for food also.’

İkmen sighed. He didn’t know what kind of environment Sophia was going back to. In all likelihood it was far and away inferior to the kind of life little Aslan would have with the İkmen family in İstanbul. Bulgaria was still a very impoverished country with huge social problems and very low levels of health care. But Aslan was half Bulgarian at least, his only surviving parent was Bulgarian and she loved him. He was her baby.

‘Sophia, I don’t know whether I will see you again, but . . .’

‘Oh, I come back sometime,’ she said. ‘For sure.’

‘I’d like to give you some money,’ İkmen said, ‘for the baby. I . . . Just let me know where you are and . . . Look, you can always ask me for money, you know?’

She looked at him levelly, suspicious he could tell, but then she said, ‘I know.’

‘There’s something else too.’

‘Something?’

He handed the baby back to her and then put his hand in his pocket and took out his wallet. He had taken out Fatma’s housekeeping money earlier that day, and now he handed it over. The girl’s eyes grew large at the sight of it.

‘My wife,’ İkmen said. ‘I don’t know whether you know where I live or not, Sophia, but I must urge you to keep who you are and what you are doing to yourself until you leave İstanbul. I don’t want my wife to know about you until after you have gone.’

The girl looked confused. ‘You . . .’

‘Sophia, if my wife found out that you were leaving the country with the baby she would try to take him away from you,’ İkmen said. ‘Our son . . .’

‘Aslan died.’

‘Yes, indeed.’ İkmen wiped a nascent tear from his eye with the back of his hand. ‘Your baby is our grandson, the only connection left with our son,’ he said. ‘But he is your child, Sophia, and if you want to take him back to your country you must be free to do that.’

‘I contact with you all the time!’ Sophia said as she stuffed what was to her a huge amount of money into her pockets.

‘That would be nice,’ İkmen said. ‘That would be very nice.’

Later, when the girl had gone and he had had a chance to think about what had happened, he wondered whether she had just come to him for cash. He wondered if he would ever see her or his grandson again. The thought that maybe he wouldn’t made him feel sick. But then how much worse would it be if he told Fatma and then had to deal with her worry and grief over the baby? Things had changed so much already and she was barely talking to him now. For selfish reasons as well as Fatma’s sanity, he couldn’t put her or himself through any more traumatic scenarios.

His son and many other people’s sons and daughters had died since Yusuf Kaya escaped from Kartal Prison. A lucrative drug route into the country had been uncovered if not, as yet, plugged. Had that been worth what had happened in İstanbul, Birecik and Mardin? He really didn’t know, and as he took his latest bottle of brandy out of his desk drawer and gulped long and hard from its neck, he had no idea what, if anything, was the point of any human act at all.

In fact he would have drunk the whole bottle had it not been for the phone call that came then. He was, he knew, and had been since Bekir’s death, descending into the alcoholism that had characterised his forties. So he answered the phone slowly and without enthusiasm.

‘İkmen.’

‘Çetin!’ said the clearly excited voice of Mehmet Süleyman.

‘Yes.’

‘Çetin, one of Elizabeth Smith’s guards has come across the Iraqi border and given himself up. He was terrified out there. Couldn’t wait to get home even though he knew he’d be punished.’

‘I’m not surprised. Iraq . . .’

‘Yes – and Çetin, listen to this,’ Süleyman said. ‘This man is going to tell us what he knows about the Wormwood Route. We have another piece of the puzzle. And with İzzet Melik and Ayşe Farsakoğlu looking into possible sightings of Murat Lole . . .’

İkmen put his brandy bottle down on his desk and said, ‘There might just be some hope, do you think?’

‘I think that’s more than a possibility,’ Süleyman said triumphantly. ‘Çetin, what was done was not done in vain. It wasn’t.’

‘No.’

Çetin İkmen looked at his brandy bottle, picked it up and put it into his desk drawer, which he shut. Then, as Süleyman began to tell him more details about the man from Iraq, just very slowly, he began to smile.

This book would not have been possible without the help I received from my fellow travellers, both known and unknown, back in March 2007. This is a novel that relies upon myths and folklore and for these I have to thank the people of the east themselves: shopkeepers and officials, priests and singers, artists and those who tell the stories of the past. Teşekkürederim.

The Turkish Alphabet is very similar to its English counterpart with the following exceptions: