Deadline (19 page)

‘You should use your time to try and solve the puzzle you have been set,’ the leader said.

‘Should I?’
İ
kmen scowled. Then he took yet another step forward. This time the muzzle of a gun came between him and
the leader. ‘What if I just reached over and pulled your mask down and looked at your face?’ he said.

The Kalashnikov dug into
İ
kmen’s chest.

Süleyman said again, ‘Çetin.’

İ
kmen smiled. He put one finger on the muzzle of the rifle and said, ‘Oh, don’t worry, Mehmet, my friend, I’m not going to do anything rash.’ Then looking steadily into the leader’s eyes he said, ‘But you should know that we are not fools. Have your fun with us, we can’t stop you doing that, but don’t underestimate us. Underestimate my intelligence, and you will make me very angry.’

They were getting what people in American cop films would call ‘tooled up’. In other words, they were selecting weapons, checking them and positioning them on belts, straps, inside jackets and in holsters on their legs. Ersu Nadir remembered this kind of activity from his time in the army. When he and his soldier brothers had gone out on patrol, they’d prepared themselves in a similar fashion.

Some members of the Special Forces team had already been deployed outside the hotel and, with the help of Sergeant Farsako
ğ
lu inside, it had been decided to attempt to infiltrate the building via the kitchens at some point. But the heavily mustachioed police sergeant, who was apparently
her fiancée, was almost wearing the floor of the pub out as he paced back and forth in a state of high anxiety. The overweight police commissioner pointedly ignored him. As far as Ersu could tell, there were no immediate plans to storm the hotel but he could also understand
İ
zzet Melik’s state of mind. Ay
ş
e Farsako
ğ
lu was the woman he intended to marry and so of course he didn’t want her to take any risks.

The commissioner came and sat down opposite Ersu, slopping some of his coffee as he moved behind the table. He said, ‘Now, Ersu Bey, about this man Hüseyin Hikmet . . .’

‘The one that Nar hit over the head.’

‘Yes. You told us he was tall and in his thirties, but is there anything else you can tell us about him?’

‘But you have his ATM card, his name, surely—’

‘Ersu Bey, it is a common name,’ Ardıç said. ‘The more we can narrow the field, the better. Did you perhaps recognise him as someone who had worked on a casual basis at the hotel before?’

‘No,’ Ersu said. ‘But then people come and go all the time.’

‘Was there anything distinguishing about this man? Something like a mole on his face or a scar?’

Ersu Bey replayed in his mind what he recalled of Nar hitting the man over the head and then the three of them putting him in the fridge
and undressing him. He’d just been a rather tall, dark, ordinary-looking thirty-something man, quite hairy on his body, and well muscled without looking as if he was a bodybuilder. He’d struck Ersu Bey as the sort of man who had continued to keep fit after his discharge from army service. Not unlike himself in that respect. But had he possessed any distinguishing marks or scars?

People got all sorts of scuffs, abrasions and dents when they did their military service. He himself had a slightly misshapen right calf where he’d broken it when on patrol that day he’d fallen into a cistern just outside the city of Mardin. On bad days he limped.

Ersu Bey closed his eyes. Sometimes, cutting out distractions in the present allowed the memory to have more of a fighting chance to find what was only barely noticed in the past. Sergeant Farsako
ğ
lu, the transsexual and Ersu had pulled the man’s clothes off roughly. Aware that any one of his colleagues could come down the corridor at any moment, they’d done what they’d had to do quickly. Nar had chirruped on about how Turkish men always wore vests because they were all basically mummy’s boys. But beyond that . . .

And then, finally, he remembered.

He looked at Ardıç and said, ‘He’d lost his little finger. On his left hand. There was just a stump.’

Nar was very aware of the
fact that all of these masked gunmen called each other on their mobile phones. She’d searched Hüseyin Hikmet’s pockets to try and find his phone but his jumpsuit was heavy and had pockets all over the place and it was only when her right leg appeared to break out into ‘When I’m Gone’ by Eminem that she discovered the small zip-up pocket just under the knee. She was in the toilet.

‘I need you in the ballroom,’ a man’s voice said.

‘OK.’ She knew she had to keep all her responses short and sweet. Her voice had been affected by hormone treatment; even without that, she didn’t necessarily sound like Hüseyin Hikmet, the man in the fridge.

‘Where are you?’ the voice asked.

‘I’m in the . . .’ Turkish men could be very coy about toilets. ‘Downstairs,’ she said.

He got the code. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But don’t be long.’

Nar stared down at the phone for a few seconds. Then she came out of the toilet cubicle and, looking about to make sure that she was alone, she called her own number.

After a short pause, Ay
ş
e Farsako
ğ
lu answered. ‘Who is this?’ she whispered.

‘It’s me, Nar.’

‘Nar? But you haven’t got a phone, I’ve got your—’

‘Ay
ş
e Hanım, listen,’ Nar said. They didn’t have time for details. ‘Keep this number and call me on
it. Where are you?’

But Ay
ş
e hesitated. It was then that Nar thought that maybe the policewoman feared some sort of trap.

‘My leg rang and I found the phone in a small pocket underneath my knee,’ Nar said.

There was another short pause and then Ay
ş
e said, ‘I’m in the front lobby but I’m moving out soon. Do you know who these people are yet?’

‘No,’ Nar said. ‘But I do know that something very strange is going on.’

‘Yes, Nar,’ Ay
ş
e said. ‘I think I’ve worked that out!’

‘No.’ Nar looked nervously at the door into the toilets. ‘
İ
kmen had a stand-up row with whoever leads this bunch,’ she said. ‘You know where we saw that dead body in the bar?’

‘How can I ever forget?’ Ay
ş
e whispered.

‘One of those doctors discovered that all that blood was fake,’ Nar said.

‘Fake?’

‘As in the blood you see on TV.
İ
kmen reckons that this game they’re being forced to play is being loaded against them.’

‘So the man we saw dead in the bar
wasn’t dead?’ Ay
ş
e said.

‘Maybe,’ Nar said. But then the toilet door opened and she ended the call and put the phone back into the pocket just below her knee.

All of the actors had been up
on the fourth floor of the hotel when Söner Erkan was murdered. Not only was the company staying on that floor, they were all supposed to be there at that time in order to enact the fake killing that was to have provided the highlight of the murder mystery evening. Apart from Lale Aktar, who had found the body, Burak Fisekçi who had been in the lavatory, and the hotel concierge who had been at his post, everybody else’s whereabouts had still to be established.

Now Krikor Sarkissian, armed with a guest list, performed a roll call of everyone in the ballroom. He asked them to say where they had been just before Lale Aktar came downstairs with blood on her dress. As they gave their answers he watched them and those around them for any sign they might be lying. The roll call also allowed him to determine who the guests who had supposedly been shot really were.

Once he had completed this task he went back into the Kubbeli Saloon and sat
down next to his brother between
İ
kmen and Süleyman. Hovsep Pars, Lale Aktar and Arto Sarkissian spoke quietly to each other on one side. With his pen, Krikor pointed to each name unaccounted for on his list.

‘Aysel Ökte is a great believer in the decriminalisation of addiction and in prison reform,’ he said. ‘I know her quite well. She came to the clinic for meetings often. But then there are these three.’ He pointed to three men’s names on different parts of the list. ‘Ra
ş
it Demir, Yiannis Istefanopoulos and Haluk Mert.’

‘Is Mert something to do with the family Mert who run that chain of fitness clubs or whatever one calls such things?’
İ
kmen said.

‘Maybe. Aren’t they quite well-connected?’

Süleyman, who had been leaning over and frowning at the list, said, ‘All three of those men are well-connected – and the woman. Aysel Ökte is a descendant of Hüsnü Pa
ş
a who was one of Sultan Vehdettin’s most trusted servants. The Mert family have served both the Ottoman Empire and then the Republic for decades as members of the military elite.’

İ
kmen and Krikor Sarkissian looked at each other. It wasn’t always a boon to have someone on hand whose family had been royalty, but sometimes it was invaluable.

‘Ra
ş
it Demir also comes from a good family. I know that because I went to the
Lycée with his older brother,’ Süleyman said. ‘I think they were regional governors during the Empire. As for Mr Istefanopoulos, well, he’s a Fener Greek, a Byzantine. It doesn’t get more ancient and venerable than that.’

‘So you think they set out to kill people of quality?’ Krikor asked.

‘If they did then they missed one,’
İ
kmen said as he looked across at Süleyman. ‘And anyway, do we know that they’re actually dead? No, we don’t. Their bodies have disappeared, there was fake blood where their bodies had been and now we have more masked men, which may or may not be connected to these people. So if you didn’t know Demir, Mert and Istefanopoulos, who invited them, Krikor?’

He shrugged. ‘Well, I did,’ he said. ‘In concert with my team. We compiled the guest list together. We went through all the prominent or influential or just plain rich people we knew and we invited them. Aysel, for example, has been involved with prisoners and their families for years, first in the old Bayrampa
ş
a Prison and now in Silivri. She’s also, I believe, been involved in some of the regional prisons too: Kayseri,
İ
zmir spring to mind.’

‘Why were Demir, Mert and Istefanopoulos put on the list?’
İ
kmen asked. ‘What good works did they do?’

‘I can’t remember,’ Krikor said. ‘But Burak might.’

Süleyman, who had been lost in thought,
said, ‘If I remember correctly, Ra
ş
it Demir became a psychoanalyst.’

‘As in Freud? Oedipus complex?’
İ
kmen asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Mmm. Not a therapy I usually give much credence to,’ Krikor said, ‘but clearly someone on the team must have. We’ll have to talk to Burak. Inspector Süleyman, I don’t suppose you know what Mert and Istefanopoulos do?’

‘They’re both in business,’ Süleyman said. ‘Like Inspector
İ
kmen said, I think that Mert is something to do with health clubs. I do know they’re both rich and I also know that it’s said they don’t like each other, but I don’t know why.’

‘They must have been invited because of their wealth,’ Krikor said. ‘I’ll speak to Burak.’

But neither Krikor Sarkissian nor either of the police officers moved. They were being very closely watched and listened to by their captors. Were they smiling underneath those balaclava helmets? Or were they worried that, with time ticking on, their captives were moving ever closer to some sort of solution?
İ
kmen for one did not feel that the latter was even on the cards. Although he hardly dared to admit it to himself, he was pinning his hopes on some sort of intervention via Ay
ş
e Farsako
ğ
lu. By this time she had certainly alerted Ardıç which meant that there was probably
a squad of police officers outside the hotel, if not a detachment of Special Forces. But what would, realistically, happen if they stormed the hotel? The masked men were heavily armed. He thought about that for a few moments and then the words,
Are they?
came quite unbidden into his mind.

What Ardıç had decided posed Ay
ş
e Farsako
ğ
lu with both a problem and a feeling of relief. Hiding out in the Pera Palas wasn’t doing any of the people who were being held hostage any good and, as Ardıç said, if they could get someone in who could do something constructive, all the better. The lock on the back door into the kitchen had now been broken and, as far as she could tell, nobody was in the basement at the moment, unless they were in the toilets. Her biggest problem was getting Nar to meet her down there. Special Forces officers were moving in and the plan was for one of them to take Nar’s place. This would get the two women out and also allow infiltration of the masked assailants by a highly trained officer wearing a microphone. It would give the police the eye on the inside that they needed. They also planned to bring out the man she, Nar and Ersu Bey had bundled into the fridge.

But so far the text Ay
ş
e had sent to Nar had not elicited a reply, in all probability
because she was unable to respond. She could not, after all, just answer a text if she was in full view of her colleagues.

But Ay
ş
e couldn’t afford to just wait. She had to get out from behind the concierge’s desk, down the stairs to the basement and into the kitchens. Since she’d left the kitchen herself, she’d only seen people go down to the basement to go to the toilet. She knew this because either she’d seen masked men take guests down or gang members had gone down alone and then returned. But had she seen
all
of them go and then return? And if lone gunmen went down to the basement, were they really just going to the toilet or were they doing something else – like going to the kitchens? She couldn’t be sure. But she’d sent a text to Ardıç telling him she was making for the kitchens. She had to do it soon. Time was passing and an intervention needed to be effected before the gunmen made good on their threat to kill all of their hostages.