that Frenchman. Jean Le-something. Le Reau? He leaned over the crumpled figure, held his finger to the man’s neck, felt his torso, then straightened slowly.
“I am afraid there is nothing to do,” he said.
“You mean he is dead?” I tried very hard to keep my voice steady.
“Yes. I fear so.”
“But why? How?” Istanbul wasn’t exactly a murder capital like Detroit.
“There is a knife wound,” said Le Reau, wiping his hand on a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket.
At that moment, the emergency vehicle and police arrived. Jean Le Reau and I gave our preliminary witness statements, as did the concierge. We didn’t have much to tell.
Cautioned by the police that they would need to speak with us again that evening, Le Reau and I headed as one toward the old-fashioned bar of the Pera. We both seemed to need a drink.
CHAPTER 33
Hey, who’s there? Who laughs?
No one, I guess. Dark, empty halls.
Yet laughter rings in my ears.
Günğör Dilmen, “The Ears of King Midas” (play)
Erol Metin vomited in a shadowed gutter. He had followed orders. He had gone out on his own to uphold the honor of glorious Turkey. He should feel proud.
He did not feel proud.
Erol had not killed before. Perhaps this was a normal reaction. He was glad his sister could not see him.
The victim—why did that word come to mind?—had broken with the Silver Wolves. Altan had taken an oath and then had been lured away with money. Someone’s money. That was a capital offense in the group. New members were required to prove allegiance by carrying out the execution.
So he had followed Altan to the Pera Palas, where he apparently had non-Wolves business. While Altan waited in the shadows, Erol’s knife had come out and done its work.
Work. Just work. Remember that… It was all for the glorious cause.
He vomited again, wiped his mouth, and made his way back to Eminönü and the ferry.
The companion who had been training him for several days, Yusuf, fell into line behind him at the ferry. As their eyes met, Yusuf gave an almost imperceptible thumbs up.
So Erol was being followed and checked on. He wasn’t surprised.
CHAPTER 34
…a resolution the more necessary to be made, but perhaps not the more easily kept, because she saw that the suspicions of the whole party were awakened against them…
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
It wasn’t my first dead body, but I was shaking. The man, when Le Reau shone his flashlight on his face, was young. Too young to be lying against a wall, dead. Unless, of course, he was a drug addict. Youth is no proof against addiction—the opposite, actually. The two are often found together.
His clothes were unremarkable. Jeans. Sweatshirt that proclaimed his loyalty to the Fenerbahçe soccer team. Baseball hat saying “New York Yankees.”
What was remarkable was the amount of blood on the sidewalk, pooling now in a slippery mess. Since he had been standing when I inadvertently knocked him over, the murder must have happened just before I bumped against the guy. I may even have met the killer as I approached the hotel, since I’d come from the darker side of the street. Apparently the guards at the American consulate the next door had not heard a thing. Running to the site, their representative appeared shocked that anyone would have the nerve to commit a crime so close.
Having taken charge at first, Jean Le Reau became an innocent-looking bystander as soon as the police arrived. The team of six policemen, including two in plainclothes, came quickly and took preliminary statements from all three of us—Le Reau, the concierge, and me. We sat in lobby seats for the process, in front of the little desk. Out the window I could see the body being loaded onto a gurney. These guys were nothing if not efficient.
Jean Le Reau and I sat a long time in the bar area of the Pera waiting to give more detailed statements. A watchful officer kept an eye on us while questioning the desk clerk, who remained on duty. Few people seemed to have been disturbed by the incident. There was no crowd. A couple of hotel guests wondered aloud why police cars were there and were told, “Bir şey değil—it’s nothing to worry about.” The Pera was far from full, so there weren’t many guests.
“Get you something?” asked Le Reau, as he headed for the bar.
“A glass of white wine—Ҫankaya, if they have it. And a bottle of water, too? Thanks.”
The velvet chairs and the warmth of the room, plus the wine, helped me pull myself together. For quite a while, we didn’t speak.
“Do you have any idea who that man was?” I finally said.
“None at all. I think he was a drug addict.”
“I assumed so. But why was he killed? Why here?”
Silence from Le Reau. Then, “I’m not at all sure. It is odd.” He looked troubled. “Not so odd that an addict got killed as that it happened here, right in front of the Consulate guards.”
I admit it: we each had two glasses of wine. By the time the plainclothes detective whose nameplate said “Durmaz” returned to us, we were feeling pretty relaxed.
“Do you have anything to add to your earlier statements?” Detective Durmaz asked, looking at the business cards we had handed him. When we shook our heads, he smiled enigmatically and politely and said he would like to speak with each of us. “Separately, please. Ladies first, Mizz Darcy.”
He led me through French doors to an isolated part of the old lobby, where a small round coffee table separated our chairs. A third chair was occupied by a police translator, though I didn’t think Durmaz needed him. Occasionally we spoke a few words in Turkish, which I could follow fine. I explained the incident and told him I was in Istanbul on an interim assignment for the Washington Tribune. I couldn’t help the regret in my voice when I said the word, “interim.”
“Yes, I know about your paper’s former correspondent,” Detective Durmaz said. “I worked on that case.”
“You did?” I had a thousand questions, but this was not the time for any of them. As soon as I was released, I waved goodnight to Jean Le Reau, shook hands with Detective Durmaz, and went upstairs.
I locked the door to my room and undressed, tossing clothes onto the armchair. How tenuous life seemed in this city of mystery! Who was that dead man? Was I being pursued? How much could I trust Le Reau? He had been a godsend tonight. Almost too quickly on the scene…
I pulled yesterday’s note from the back of a drawer where I’d put it. Was this a piece of solid evidence that I was someone’s target? “Lock your door. This is from a friend.” Was it really from a friend? Did I have any friends?
I crumpled the note and threw
