Copyright © 2007 Barbara Nadel
The right of Barbara Nadel to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2011
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
eISBN: 978 0 7553 7892 0
HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
An Hachette UK Company
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
www.headline.co.uk
www.hachette.co.uk
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
About the Author
Praise for Barbara Nadel
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Glossary
Cast of Characters
Prelude
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Carpets
T E Lawrence
The Ottoman Empire in the First World War
Footnotes
About the Author
Trained as an actress, Barbara Nadel used to work in mental health services. Born in the East End of London, she now writes full time and has been a regular visitor to Turkey for over twenty years. She received the Crime Writers’ Association Silver Dagger for her novel Deadly Web in 2005. She is also the author of the highly acclaimed Francis Hancock series set during World War Two.
Praise for Barbara Nadel:
‘Barbara Nadel is in that admirable school of British crime novelists who set their mysteries in cities not their own. It feels right’ Marcel Berlins, The Times
‘Nadel’s novels take in all of Istanbul – the mysterious, the beautiful. Her characters are vivid, creating a fascinating view of contemporary Turkey’ Scotland on Sunday
‘The delight of the Nadel book is the sense of being taken beneath the surface of an ancient city which most visitors see for a few days at most. We look into the alleyways and curious dark quartiers of Istanbul, full of complex characters and louche atmosphere’ Independent
‘This is an extraordinarily interesting first novel’ Evening Standard
‘Belshazzar’s Daughter, with its brilliantly realised Istanbul setting and innovative protagonist was a hard act to follow. But she pulls off the trick triumphantly’ The Times
‘One of the most intriguing detectives in contemporary crime fiction . . . The backdrop of Istanbul makes for a fantastic setting’ Mail On Sunday
‘Unusual and very well-written’ Sunday Telegraph
‘Intriguing, exotic . . . exciting, accomplished and original’ Literary Review
To my favourite carpet dealers.
Acknowledgements
* * *
This book was written with enormous assistance from Tribal Collections carpet dealership in Göreme, Turkey. Without the expert guidance and help provided by Ruth, Faruk and Hüseyin I would have been totally lost. The world of carpets is fascinating and fun but also intricate and complicated. So a big thank you to all those involved, which includes the many carpet buyers and aficionados that I talked to as well. Any errors that may be found within this book are nothing to do with any of my tutors – they are totally and utterly all my own!
Glossary
* * *
Bakkal – grocery shop
Balık Pazar – fish market
Belediye – local council
Bey – as in ‘Çetin Bey’, an Ottoman title denoting respect, still in use today following a man’s first name
Çay ocağı – a small space in a public building, often under the stairs, from which tea is dispensed from a samovar by a usually very old functionary
Efendi – an honorific Ottoman title denoting a person of high status. Always used when addressing a prince or princess
Gulet – a wooden yacht
Han – tradesman’s hall, inn. Sometimes called a caravanserai
Jandarma – while the Turkish National Police Force are responsible for law and order in the urban districts, the Jandarma cover the rural areas. They are a paramilitary force under joint control of the military and the Interior Ministry
Kapalı Çarşı – Grand Bazaar
Kapıcı – Doorkeeper. Blocks of flats have kapıcılar, men who act as security, porters etc., for the apartment community
Kilim – flat woven rug
Mısır Çarşı – the Spice Bazaar
MIT – Turkish Secret Service
‘Mehmet’ – affectionate generic name for the ‘average’ Turkish solider. Like the British ‘Tommy’
Namaz – Muslim prayer, performed five times a day
Nargile – a water or ‘hubble bubble’ pipe used for smoking tobacco
Pide Salonu – a restaurant specialising in the slightly leavened style of bread known as pide. This may be eaten with a variety of toppings including eggs, vegetables, meat and cheese
Rakı – aniseed-flavoured alcoholic spirit
Sigara Börek – savoury pastry shaped like a cigarette
Vizier – minister. The Grand Vizier was the Ottoman equivalent of a Prime Minister
Zabıta – dedicated market police. The Zabıta check that weights and measures are correct
Cast of Characters
* * *
Çetin İkmen – middle-aged İstanbul police inspector
Mehmet Süleyman – İstanbul police inspector, İkmen’s protégé
Commissioner Ardıç – İkmen and Süleyman’s boss
Sergeant Ayşe Farsakoğlu – İkmen’s deputy
Sergeant İzzet Melik – Süleyman’s deputy
Metin İskender – young İstanbul police inspector
Dr Arto Sarkissian – İstanbul police pathologist
Abdullah Ergin – an İstanbul Tourism Police officer
Fatma İkmen – Çetin İkmen’s wife
Zelfa Süleyman – Mehmet Süleyman’s wife
Muhammed Süleyman – Mehmet Süleyman’s father
Raşit Bey – an elderly carpet dealer, a friend of Muhammed Süleyman
Mürsel Bey – a spy
Haydar – Mürsel’s sidekick
Peter Melly – an official at the British Consulate and a carpet collector
Matilda Melly – his wife
Wilhelmus (Wim) Klaassen – an official at the Dutch Consulate
Doris Klaassen – his wife
Kim Monroe – wife of a Canadian consular official
Nikolai Stoev – Bulgarian Mafia ‘Godfather’
Emine Soylu – wife of murder victim Cabbar Soylu
Prelude
* * *
By modern standards the carpet was immense. It must, the elderly carpet dealer reckoned as he passed his expert eye across the piece, measure at least three metres by nine metres.
‘They rarely make them like this any more, Muhammed Efendi,’ he said to his tall and equally elderly companion.
‘No,’ the other replied – a little sadly, the carpet dealer felt. ‘No, Raşit Bey, this carpet is from another time and place entirely.’
And then both the carpet dealer, Raşit Bey, and his friend Muhammed Efendi looked back at the small, rather shabby wooden house that was the latter’s current abode.
‘Come, let us sit and take tea under the apple trees,’ Muhammed Efendi said as he guided his friend over to a table and chairs set underneath some trees to the left of his lawn which was now almost entirely covered by the rich, enormous carpet.
Raşit Bey breathed deeply as he walked, looking around the verdant garden with great pleasure. ‘The springtime in İstanbul is hard to better, is it not, Muhammed Efendi?’
‘Impossible, in my humble opinion,’ Muhammed Efendi replied.
They sat.
‘My son, Murad, will bring tea presently,’ Muhammed Efendi said as he offered Raşit Bey a cigarette from his silver and mother-of-pearl case.
‘Thank you, Muhammed Efendi,’ Raşit Bey said as he took what was a very cheap cigarette from what he knew was a very valuable box. But then that was so typical of a certain section of the old aristocracy. People like Muhammed Süleyman Efendi, or ‘prince’ Muhammed, lived gracious poverty-stricken existences in Bosphorus villages like this one – Arnavutköy – if they were lucky. If they were not, they lived up in the high rise, scrappy suburbs out near Atatürk Airport. Muhammed Süleyman, although never personally having done a day’s work in his life, was very fortunate in having two sons who worked very hard. The eldest, a hotel manager, as Raşit Bey understood, now approached the elderly men with a tray bearing tea glasses and an ashtray.
‘Ah, Murad,’ Muhammed Efendi said as he watched his son serve himself and his friend. ‘Thank you.’
Murad, who was a pleasant-looking man in his forties, first bowed and then lit the cigarettes of both men before returning to the small house he shared with his parents and his own young daughter.
‘Ah, but Muhammed Efendi, your poor son’s wife died in such terrible circumstances. Maybe he feels that looking after his daughter and being, as I know he is, such a good son to you and your wife is enough for him now.’
Muhammed Efendi shook his head sadly. Murad’s wife had died in the great earthquake of 1999, leaving her husband to mourn bitterly and to bring up their daughter Edibe alone. He’d returned to his parents’ house in Arnavutköy almost immediately where, his father imagined, he would remain for ever unless things changed quite dramatically. But Murad was not the reason why Raşit Bey was in his garden now and so he turned his attention back to his friend and the business he wished to conduct with him.
‘So now, this carpet, Raşit Bey . . .’
‘Is a wonderful Ottoman Court Carpet, as I know you know, Muhammed Efendi.’ He leaned forward, stiffly, and took a corner of the great carpet between his fingers. The pile was thick, luscious and contained, as he knew that it would be, a high proportion of silk in the weave. ‘What, if I may be so bold, is its provenance?’
‘It belonged to one of my aunts,’ Muhammed Efendi said. ‘Do you remember the Princess Gözde? She lost her fiancé in the Great War when she was sixteen and spent the rest of her life in mourning. She was a recluse and so, even though she was my father’s sister, I saw her only infrequently.’
‘Did she live in one of those large wooden palaces up in Nişantaşı?’
‘Yes.’ Muhammed Efendi smiled. ‘By the end of the fifties most people had forgotten her existence. The house was in a state of disrepair, and she could afford neither gas nor electricity. When one night, just prior to her death in 1959, a thief broke in and saw her, he assumed she had to be a ghost and ran screaming from the building. Upon her demise, the house and all her effects were bequeathed to my father, her brother. This carpet graced the floor of the enormous entrance hall to that palace. I believe it was made at the end of the eighteenth century.’
It was beautiful in that rich, ornate fashion that had so appealed to the wealthy Ottoman mind. Probably, Raşit Bey calculated, produced in Usak in the 1790s, it was a mass of thick tulips, roses, hyacinths and carnations. He was certain it was the product of the expert weavers from the Anatolian city of Usak. They had produced carpets for the Ottoman court from the 15th right up to the 20th century.
‘Fortunately,’ Muhammed Efendi continued, ‘my father had the good sense to empty out the Princess Gözde’s house immediately after her death. Like all of those old Nişantaşı mansions, it is no more.’ He sighed. ‘It burned to the ground in the early sixties and was replaced by some hideous block of flats. We used this carpet in my father’s old house for several years afterwards but when we came here, it was, of course, far too big for any of the rooms. Until today it was rolled up against the wall of the dining room.’
‘And now you would like to obtain an opinion on the piece?’ Raşit Bey knew that Muhammed Efendi was desperate to sell. Just simply observing the brand of cigarettes he was now smoking told him that. Muhammed Efendi usually had his cigarettes made for him and so if he was reduced to the dirt-cheap ‘Birinci’ brand, things had to be tight. But Raşit Bey knew better than to talk overtly of money, even though he recognised that the carpet was worth a considerable sum. Money talk to someone like Muhammed Efendi was most vulgar. The carpet dealer would have to proceed with caution.
‘I would like an opinion, yes,’ Muhammed Efendi said as he sipped his tea thoughtfully. ‘But in your own time, Raşit Bey. Things like this cannot be rushed.’
‘No, indeed.’
The sun was shining, the spring flowers were fully in bloom and the few birds that braved the cat-patrolled garden of the Süleymans, were singing. So even the scene that surrounded him said nothing to Raşit Bey about being rushed in any way. But the carpet dealer knew. He knew the fine manners and what they concealed, he knew that Muhammed Efendi was loath to take the assistance his sons very frequently offered to him. He knew the old prince would far rather sell things than either earn money, which at his age was probably out of the question anyway, or take it from others.
‘Give it some thought,’ Muhammed Efendi said as he put his cigarette out and then almost immediately lit up another.
‘Yes, I will.’ Raşit Bey could have told him what the carpet was worth and what he could pay him for it on the spot. But such haste would be seen in a very dim light. He would, he thought, leave the old prince alone for a few days before following up the matter with a polite telephone call.
And so with the formal part of their business effectively concluded, the two men spoke of other things – Muhammed Efendi of his granddaughter who had just started primary school, and the carpet dealer of his shop and its many comings and goings. Generally trade was good and Raşit Bey was very happy about how well his grandson, Adnan, was progressing in his business.
‘If only I could say the same about Yaşar,’ Raşit Bey said, shaking his head sadly as he spoke.
‘Yaşar?’
‘The young man from the coast,’ Raşit Bey replied. ‘Used to work for my brother Cengiz in his carpet shop in Antalya. He’s been with me for just over a year now.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Muhammed Efendi frowned. ‘Didn’t he, at one time, used to have his own factory or something?’
‘No, not exactly.’ Raşit Bey finished the hated Birinci cigarette and then sipped his tea. ‘He just organised the sale of carpets the women in his village produced. Cengiz did business with him for several years before he offered him a job in his own shop. He did well for my brother, and he’s ambitious, so he eventually came on to me here in the city. He’s a bright man.’
‘So what is the problem, Raşit Bey?’
He sighed. ‘Well, if I could find Yaşar, then maybe I
would be able to answer that question, Muhammed Efendi.’
‘He’s missing?’
Raşit Bey shrugged. ‘If you include today, he hasn’t been to work for three days now – without a word of explanation.’
‘Have you visited his home?’ Muhammed Efendi asked.
‘Yes. But he isn’t there. The kapıcı of his building hasn’t seen him.’
‘What about his family? In Antalya, did you say?’
‘A village just outside. I have no contact details,’ Raşit Bey replied. He sighed. ‘To be completely candid with you, Muhammed Efendi, both myself and my brother know almost nothing about Yaşar Uzun beyond his English language and carpet-selling skills. He talks very little about his past and I, to be truthful, have little interest in it. All I know is that he is a charming and personable young man who makes me a considerable profit on what he sells. I’ll have to contact my brother.’
Muhammed Efendi frowned. ‘Have you informed the police?’
‘No!’ Raşit Bey waved a dismissive hand. ‘I’m sure there’s a good explanation and I don’t want Yaşar to get into any trouble.’ Then, without thinking, he added, ‘We all know how the police can be, don’t we?’
As soon as he’d said it, Raşit Bey realised he’d made a mistake.
‘I know how my youngest son Mehmet is, Raşit Bey,’ Muhammed Efendi said slowly and gravely. ‘He is a very good police officer.’
‘Oh, yes, but of course!’ Red to the ears, Raşit Bey said, ‘Muhammed Efendi, I apologise unreservedly. I had quite forgotten that Mehmet Bey works for the police department . . .’
‘He is an inspector,’ Muhammed Efendi said with obvious pride. ‘His mother doesn’t approve, of course, she thinks the job is beneath him, but . . . My Mehmet has solved murder cases, Raşit Bey. The boy has a brilliant mind and is most discreet too.’
‘I am sure.’
‘A missing person is nothing to him,’ Muhammed Efendi said. ‘If you want me to, I can ask my son to look for this Yaşar for you. He will find him.’