Читать книгу The Istanbul Puzzle - Laurence O’Bryan - Страница 16

Chapter 11

Arap Anach stood on the balcony of his suite. In front of him the lights of the buildings crowding around the Golden Horn were cobwebs of diamonds.

The hem of his midnight-blue silk robe wafted in the breeze. There was an angry shout. He looked down beyond the black ironwork balcony. Istanbul in early August was a hot and airless city at ground level. Only those with expensive apartments or hotel suites high up felt the cooling breezes that glided over the rooftops.

Far below, in the thin light of a street lamp, a beggar jerked in the dust. People were gathering. Someone shouted. Malach watched, as if observing the death of an ant.

The sliding door behind him opened with a swish. He turned. Malach came through, bowed and spoke in a quiet voice.

‘They failed,’ he said. ‘The car he escaped in had CD plates. It’s registered to the British Consulate. We got photos from his room, and an iPad too.’ He handed the photos to Arap.

‘Don’t turn the iPad on,’ said Arap. He held the photos up. ‘You didn’t get his phone?’

‘No. But we know his name. He came from England yesterday.’

‘Look for him, but discreetly. And finish the clean up. I want no traces for anyone to find.’

Malach nodded, turned, went back out through the door, closed it with a click behind him.

Arap ran his hands along the balcony, caressing it. Then he gripped it, hard.

Copies of the pictures that Greek boy had taken could be in the hands of the British already. It wouldn’t be easy for them to work out where they had been taken, but it wouldn’t be impossible either.

But would they understand the significance of what they’d found, bother to follow it up? Maybe. They weren’t stupid. All these loose ends would have to be sorted out quickly.

Five years of planning could not be wasted. It had taken too long to get to this point. Everything was almost ready.

He remembered the day he’d started down this road. The day he’d discovered his father’s dismembered corpse in the master bedroom of that gaudy villa in Austria.

His father had deserved what he got. Anyone who spent their time on the Cote d’Azur in a drugged haze, squandering their inheritance, deserved a painful end. The only useful thing he’d taught him was a lesson very few fathers thought it necessary to teach their children.

Arap’s own tastes had been corrupted a long time ago. He’d known that since he’d raped a girl near his school in England. The local paper had been full of it. Why they’d cared so much about a nobody, an insignificant larva, he still had no idea. The English were far too squeamish.

That slippery wisp of a girl hadn’t been his first taste of forbidden pleasure either. He’d lost his virginity when he was ten. His father’s friends had laughed as they’d pretended to strangle him on a yacht in the Aegean, as they took pleasure from his body. That had been an experience he would never forget.

What his father told him afterwards had stuck in his mind; when you’ve done things that can never be forgiven, you become free, because you can never go back, never undo them.

And he’d been right. He was free, and about to make his mark in a way his father had never contemplated. He was going to do something such as his ancestors had done centuries ago. His inherited estates and titles going back a thousand years made it all possible. There were few others who had the ambition, money and connections to make this thing happen. His time was coming.

His phone beeped. He picked it up from the marble table. A scrambled message icon was flashing. He pressed at it. Letters scrolled in front of him.

The siren of an ambulance sounded below. He put the phone down, peered over the railing. Shadows were milling around the ambulance. All the powerless larvae.

Everything they’d known was about to change. There were just a few things to fix now, and Malach could take care of those, easily. He’d proved long ago that he enjoyed such tasks.