He looked around. Low-wattage light swinging from the ceiling throwing a nicotine glow on walls the colour of British cement. A hole in the ground signalling a convenience, the malodorous smell and dark cloud of flies buzzing round the entrance further confirmation. A dodgy-looking stain, the colour of dried pig’s blood, on the floor to his right. A steel door, with a slot in it for those outside to see in, remained resolutely shut. So much for Turkish hospitality, he thought dryly. There was no sound of faraway traffic, no human voice, no birdsong, so he guessed he was deep in the bowels of a building. The size of the cell, for that’s what it was, was the human equivalent of a battery hen’s coop. And, Christ, it was hot. His lungs felt as if they were sticking to his ribs. Might as well shove him in an oven, turn it to 200 degrees and roast him.
He staggered to his feet, tried to get his bearings, tried to focus. His watch was missing from his wrist so he had no idea of time. Without natural light he couldn’t even make an estimate. Wherever he’d been taken, he doubted that it was a police station. That worried him.
He retreated to the corner of his cell. Best he could do was conserve his energy, stay upbeat. There was absolutely nothing to connect him to the dead man so it was pointless to speculate about the reason he’d been brought and banged up there—wherever there was. Fear of the unknown was his greatest enemy. He refused to entertain the notion of detention centres and secret police, of places where men were detained without charge or trial, or of ghost prisoners held in legal limbo. He had a high pain threshold, but even seasoned soldiers knew that the mental anticipation and anguish was often worse than the horror itself. As soon as his captors came for him, he decided to play the role of outraged tourist. No heroics. No trying to beat the system. But plain old browned-off from Britain. Oh, and act frightened, he thought. Remember, he repeated to himself, you’re David Miller, boring, lowly IT consultant.
At last, he heard some movement and the scraping sound of metal against metal. The slot in the door drew back. A face with midnight eyes peered in, expressionless, followed by another face, which Tallis immediately recognised. On seeing Ertas, he got up. ‘Captain,’ he began, hope briefly rising. ‘So glad—’ Before he could complete his sentence, the slot slammed shut. Irritated, Tallis hunkered back down on the cardboard. At least he wouldn’t freeze to death.
Hours seemed to pass. He was getting seriously dehydrated, his thinking lacking clarity, becoming muddled. Who was Ertas? Was he part of the administrative police keeping track of foreigners, the judicial police investigating crimes or the dreaded political police who combatted subversives of any denomination? Bound to be crossovers, Tallis thought foggily, or maybe Ertas belonged to none of these groups.
He must have fallen asleep. He woke up with a yell. A guard standing over him had thrown a bucket of ice-cold water over his head. Tallis stuck his tongue out, eager to catch a few precious drops. Two other guards were pulling him up, banging his knees along the concrete, dragging him towards the open door. God, he thought, what next? He’d heard about enhanced interrogation techniques. He’d heard they weren’t very nice.
He managed to get up onto his feet. They were taking him at a fast trot down a dingy corridor. He could hear voices now. Men shouting. A gut-wrenching cry of pain tore through the fetid air. Barked orders.
Stairs ahead. One of the guards led the way, the other behind threatening him with a Taser stun gun should he try anything clever. Not that Tallis had any intention of risking 50,000 volts and total muscle paralysis. The noise was growing louder now. More desperate. The unmistakable clamour of violence. In spite of the heat, Tallis felt a chill as cold as a desert night creep deep into his soul.
The corridor opened out. Overhead strip lighting flickered with enough of a strobe effect to induce a fit in an epileptic. Doors off on either side, some of the metal grilles open, sounds of excessive use of force crashing around his ears. He hoped it was staged. If it wasn’t, poor sods, he thought.
They were walking three abreast, Tallis stumbling slightly, not used to walking in bare feet, and feeling off balance with his hands tied together. Finally they came to the end and to what looked like the type of lift you saw in a car park. One of the guards pressed a security keypad and the metal doors drew apart. Tallis was butted through into another corridor, more stairs, more fancy codes and security panels, more shouts of protest. For a brief moment, he thought he heard the strains of classical music and the sound of dripping water. Must be the product of a vivid imagination. Either that, or he was hallucinating. And then all his birthdays came at once. He was standing in an open space, like an atrium, natural light flooding through the barred windows in the ceiling. So delighted by the sight of the sun crashing down on blue, he hardly noticed Ertas, but he did clock the man standing next to him. Deeply tanned, strong-jawed, and sturdy with eyes that were too close together so that it was impossible to detect who or what he was looking at. The man dismissed the two guards with a short command. At once, Tallis could tell that, fluent though the man’s Turkish was, it wasn’t his first language.
‘This way, please,’ Ertas said, coldly remote, indicating that Tallis follow.
Despite feeling a twat, standing there in his underwear, Tallis stood his ground. ‘This how you normally treat visitors to your country?’ he fumed. ‘I demand to know where you are holding me and why. I also insist that I have full legal representation. I want to see Mr Cardew at once.’
‘You make many demands, Mr Miller,’ Ertas said quietly, with disdain.
Thank God for that, Tallis thought. At least his true identity hadn’t been revealed. Could only make things complicated. A quick visual of the building told him that escape was probably out of the question. The atrium appeared to be the highest point of the structure. There were no other windows, only doors off with a staircase leading down at the opposite end. A man in boxer shorts, even in these soaring temperatures, wasn’t exactly likely to go far. ‘Who’s your friend?’ he said, bolshie.
Ertas answered. ‘You may call him Koroglu.’
Strange, why can’t he speak for himself? Tallis thought, eyeing the man suspiciously.
‘Come,’ Ertas said, pivoting on his heel.
Tallis let out a belligerent sigh. He felt less fear now, his outrage building and genuine. Shown into a room not too dissimilar to the one at the police station, he asked first for water then to be untied. Both requests were ignored.
Ertas pulled up a chair for himself. Koroglu took a position behind Tallis. Ertas asked Tallis to sit down.
‘I pro—’ Two firm hands grabbed his shoulders, fingers digging deep into his nerves. Tallis gasped with shock and slumped down, arms half paralysed. He wondered what rank Koroglu held, from which department he hailed. Bastard division, he concluded.
Ertas, who was sitting opposite, showed no emotion. ‘After you left the station, what did you do?’ His voice was soft, coaxing.
Fucking predictable, Tallis thought, straight out of the hard-guy, soft-guy school of police interrogation. Ertas had probably picked that up in the States, too.
‘Not sure exactly when that was,’ Tallis said, leaning forward slightly, wishing he could rub his arms and get the circulation going. A stolen glance at Ertas’s watch told him it was four in the afternoon.
‘Two days ago.’
Right, Tallis thought so now he knew exactly how long he’d been held, which wasn’t very long at all. Just felt that way. ‘I went back to the hotel. I can tell you what I had to eat if you insis—’
The blow came from the left, flat-handed, mediumstrength,
