Blood From A Shadow (2012) Page 20

  The doctor arrived within minutes, pushed me out of the way, lifted her top, “Fuck!” he said. Didar’s stomach was a maelstrom of black, blues and purples, swollen, distended. Her ribs traced sweeping parallel strokes of purple and red. The doctor looked over his shoulder at me.

  “What did this woman do to deserve this kicking, you bastard!” he said.

  Walker led me out to another room. I didn’t resist.

  “Dr Silay will take her to a private clinic close by, she’ll be in good hands, nobody will know where she is, but he wants you to stay in here, ok? Nobody is accusing you of anything, right now, but it’s normal practice, understand?” he said.

  I waited in there but came back into the hallway when they started to move her. Walker stepped in front of me, kept me back, I relented, just saw her hanging hair drifting along as she was carried out. The other two ministers watched them drive off, closed the door, gave me the same accusing look, and went up stairs, leaving Walker to deal with me.

  “She’ll be fine now, she’s getting the best care in Istanbul,” Walker said. “Dr Silay will call me in the morning, you can go see her then,” he said.

  I sat on the sofa she had just been lifted from, Walker took his armchair, directly opposite me.

  “So, another one of Artie’s little adventures ends up with somebody hurt,” he said. “What’s he into this time?”

  I wasn’t in the mood for a heart to heart, but there was something about this man’s presence that commanded a straight answer.

  “I can’t blame Artie on this one,” I said. “I didn’t mean for her to get hurt, but things just spun out of control. I don’t really know what happened, don’t think Artie knows either.”

  He didn’t even try to hide his derision.

  “Artie McCooey is a dangerous man,” Walker said. “Not because he isn’t well-meaning, not at all, but because he is an amateur. I’ve told him before, he should stick to his day job, whatever the hell that is in that Roman palace he lives in. I guess you’re some sort of freelancer too, huh? Otherwise you wouldn’t be washed up at my door, you’d be a few miles up the road in that fortress the US Consulate runs at Istinye. What do you hope to achieve here, soldier? World peace, with Arthur McCooey acclaimed as the architect?”

  “Right now, I just hope she is ok, that’s all,” I said.

  “Well, that’s good to hear,” he said. “Start with the little people and work your way up from there. That’s where we have gone wrong over the years, that’s why I retired from all that bullshit business, ended up here as a meek servant of the Lord. Artie’s going in the opposite direction, he’s forgotten who his role model should be.”

  “That bullshit business”, he told me, was his 30 year combined service in the Marine Corps and the CIA. In Nam with the Marines, then Central Americas with the Agency. El Salvador, Nicaragua, Cuba, always Cuba. Disillusioned in his fifties, he returned to theology and started afresh.

  “Yeah, I started off as a kid in St John’s Seminary, way over there in Brighton, was going to be a Catholic priest, just like Artie. Never been out of Billerica before I enrolled, just a green kid. You familiar with Boston? Next thing was I landed in Nam, that was the end of the priesthood for me, until 30 years of service left me with a shrivelled soul, and I was called back by the Lord,” he said.

  “But you didn’t become a Catholic priest?” I asked.

  He guffawed a raucous laugh, then spoke in a congenial, warm voice.

  “Listen, son. I resigned from the CIA because it was full of self-serving, duplicitous, cut-throat careerists. We were all so important that we couldn’t trust ordinary people anymore, they were all too dangerous. Do you think I was going to leave all that and then join Artie’s Catholic Church? I don’t think so! The CIA have only had 65 years to nest itself that labyrinthine hall of mirrors, Artie’s crowd have been at it for 2,000 years. No thanks, I took up where I left off at the Divinity School in Cambridge, suited me fine. Here I am. So, what about you? You’re the son of Artie’s cousin, aren’t you? I thought you were Irish, what happened your accent?”

  He thought I was McErlane?

  “No, that’s a different guy, but he’s involved too. He’s why I am here, as far as I know,” I said.

  He shifted in his chair, sat forward, loomed over me, his whole persona shifted as well. Now he was back as a CIA interrogator.

  “Well, we’ve got a young woman beat to shit on our hands,” he said. “You want my help, you better work out what you do know, quick. Otherwise, I’m lifting that phone to police HQ, get me? And remember, you’re not speaking to an amateur half-wit like Artie McCooey here, right?”

  I told him my story without any plotting. I didn’t have any hustle to hoodwink him with. I was trying to piece it all together as I spoke, hoped he could interpret it for me, divine what was happening. Heroin, al Qaeda, Iran, new 9/11, me and Ferdy. Swansea dead. Kaffa dead. Conroy missing, Didar attacked. I told it all, he listened, I waited.

  “And you reckon they were military, Israelis and Brits?”

  I knew that was where they came from, couldn’t say they weren’t mercenaries for a gang now.

  He looked off somewhere in the distance, maybe back to the life he ran away from.

  “We’ll get Artie over here tomorrow,” he said. “If the Israelis really are in this, in Istanbul, and he is involved, then he has excelled even the level of stupidity I have come to expect from him. Come on, I’ll show you your room. You’ll see your girl in the morning, I’ll pray for her tonight. You might try it yourself, and pray for Artie too, because I think I’ll kick his ass when he gets here,” the CIA Minister said.

  I did pray for her, replayed the last time, the gagging incense draping my mother’s coffin, mumbled my plea without faith or devotion. Just bring her back, I’ll do her justice next time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  I knew I wouldn’t sleep that night, too many what ifs juggling for attention. I would have to get her out of Turkey. Artie could organise something, bring her to Rome, maybe force Duffin’s hand, get her to the US, that would be the cherry on her cake. What would Rose think of that? Maybe nothing, maybe glad. Didar would probably disappear in Manhattan and I would never see her again anyway. I tried to imagine how I would reach Conroy, and what I would do about Ferdy, but Didar kept pushing to the front, squeezing everyone else out. I just couldn’t sleep. And the pain, it felt like a blade was lodged in my ribs, my ankle throbbed, the cigarette burns stung every time I forgot about them. I couldn’t get comfortable, couldn’t placate my mind and body. And the nightmare, getting worse, I was prepared to drop a night’s sleep to keep that at bay. But I must have slept some, woke up again when the Muezzins stretched to richochet their prayer alerts through these thin streets and alleyways that were originally an Italian quarter.

  It was still dark in my bare cell, I listened to the cresting recital, even recognised some beauty in it, not like Baghdad. But now something else. Movement on the stairs. Half expected this to happen. I swung out of the crib Walker had thrown together, but fell to my knees, paralysed by the pain gripping my whole body. The stab in my ribs snagged my breath, my ankle was ballooned like a pumpkin, I was helpless. Someone was outside the door, I looked for a weapon, just the brass crucifix beside the bed, I scrambled across and grabbed Christ’s body, ready to use the heavy base as my hammer. The door opened carefully, Walker’s head appeared, saw me half crouched on one leg ready to strike with the crucifix.

  “Cornelius, Dr Silay is downstairs. It’s bad news, son. Didar died last night, God rest her soul. Would you please come down and join us?”

  I didn’t believe him, death had slapped me plenty of times, I would know when it was real. No mistake son. He was sorry. He was sympathetic but direct too, I guess that’s what he is paid for. The Muezzin song crackled out, I sat in silence. He started to help me get dressed, but my pants didn’t fit over my balloon ankle, he went off and brought me his thermal fleece dressing gown, too short for e
ither of us. I leant on his solid frame to hobble down the three flights of stairs, back into the room where I had laid her down.

  The doctor and the other two ministers stood up as Walker steered me to the sofa. I was mustered for inspection, they studied me as I eased onto the cushion. The doctor spoke first.

  “I am very sorry, we did all we could but her injuries were very serious. Please accept my condolences,” he shook my hand.

  Joannes and the other minister comforted me, I wasn’t a woman beater now, something had changed their attitude to me.

  “Didar regained consciousness for a short time,” the doctor said. “She told me that you saved her life, you rescued her from her captors. You were very brave.”

  I almost threw up. Walker rubbed my shoulder.

  “I don’t think you were aware, but she was pregnant, about 6 weeks. I don’t think she realised it herself,” Dr Silay said.

  “It wasn’t mine,” was all I could say. That seemed to relieve them all.

  “She was not completely lucid, but she asked me to tell you something. She said her mother was wrong, her mother and your wife, both wrong. She said the ghosts, the bad spirits, don’t follow you, they lead you to your destiny,” he said, then apologised to the Ministers for relating the pagan message.

  The four of them had practiced this routine many times, offering succour to the zombie jilted in grief, their vocation to revive the survivors. But I was an imposter. I wasn’t family, wasn’t a lover, a friend, an intimate. I was just the predator that had plucked her from her street. I had used her, now it was finished and I would move on. She knew what we were like, we Gavur men.

  Walker took the lead now. She had been murdered, the attackers must be brought to justice, of course, but there was also a responsibility to protect me, my life was still in danger, there was a reasonable balance to be struck. The doctor agreed. Walker would make funeral arrangements, Silay would provide the necessary documentation. He checked me out. Cracked ribs, badly sprained ankle, four weeks, maybe five, for recovery. He was tired, had to get washed up and catch his morning prayers. He palmed his bill to Walker on his way out.

  Walker asked me who to contact.

  “Her mother lives in Tarlabasai somewhere, but I don’t know where. There is a young Gypsy guy called Punka, he was wounded in Aksaray, the police know him. Get word to him. Tell him I’m sorry. And Dimitri, the old guy that owns a bar over there, tell him. She meant something to him. Tell him I’m sorry as well,” I said.

  “I’ll take care of it, son. Artie is on his way, should be here this afternoon. You go back to bed and rest up,” Walker said.

  Walker and Joannes helped me up, Joannes said Dr Silay had told him some stuff before I got down there.

  “Dr Silay said the poor girl should have a Sunni Muslim funeral, but he thinks the family were probably secretly Yazidi, because she said you were her Peacock Angel,” Joannes said.

  “She said crazy things like that,” I said. “What’s the difference between Muslim and Yazidi?”

  “Well, Muslims here refer to Yazidi as devil worshippers, but that’s too simple, a lot of cultural baggage, as always,” Joannes said. “And I’m no expert, but I think their God is much like anyone else’s. They don’t believe in an evil entity like Satan, they believe all evil is man made, but we have the choice to be good or evil. The Peacock Angel embodies all that is good, a representation of God, so she must have really respected you. And I think they have some form of reincarnation too, not sure about that. I’m sorry for my hostility towards you last night, you didn’t deserve it,” Joannes said.

  They hauled me back up the stairs, propped pillows under my side and Joannes went back down to fix me some breakfast. Walker shook and rattled the pipework around the lukewarm radiator beside my bed. He wouldn’t fix the airblock that way, but I didn’t offer any advice.

  “What religion do the Roma have, Reverend Walker, you know, the Gypsies? Do they believe in the devil, bad spirits?” I said.

  Walker was on his back, inspecting the pipework.

  “They’re all Muslims here, but I guess the Roma harbor superstitions too, so yeah, I’d say some of them believe in bad spirits. Why? You getting spooked out?” he said.

  “Just what Joannes was saying, about my ghosts. I’m starting to wonder if I’m jinxed, I sure never seem to bring good luck with me,” I said.

  His rough red hand clasped the radiator to pull himself up. His joints creaked as he straightened, he smacked the dust off his pants.

  “Listen son, I got into this racket because I wanted to concentrate on the goodness in this world,” he said. “You know I saw enough of the other side when I was serving my country. I don’t want to know about any of that stuff anymore, but if the Yazidi think evil only exists because men create it, then fair enough, let’s just stop creating it, ok?”

  That was easy if you cut yourself off from the real world, I thought, retreated to a fox-hole like this, like my own refuge in Hoboken. Walker wasn’t so different to me, had exercised the same opt-out clause, he was just still able to fool himself, that’s all. I kept my thoughts to myself.

  “But if you want to see primeval superstition in the raw, just get Artie McCooey tanked with enough good whiskey,” Walker laughed. “His urbane Roman piety doesn’t suppress that inherited juju of his for long. Scratch him deep enough, and the belief in banshees and the Irish ghost world is still in there somewhere, devoted son of the Church that he is.”

  I had a lot to scratch Artie about, but that could wait. Walker went downstairs, came back twenty minutes later carrying a tray with my breakfast. Freshly baked flat bread, cheeses, honey, yoghurt, dates, coffee, toast and heavy duty painkillers.

  “So”, I said, “a young Gypsy man, like that guy Punka, he might call Didar a devil woman just because he knew she came from a Yazidi family, not necessarily because she had any black powers herself, you know, like a second sight or something, right?”

  Walker eased the tray on the bed beside me, stopped at the door on his way out.

  “I couldn’t say. I do know the Roma like to visit the dead before the funeral. They ask for forgiveness for any wrongs they did on the person when they were alive, prevents the ghost coming back for revenge, they believe. The funeral will have to be today, so I’ll get word to that Punka guy somehow. You think he was the baby’s father?” he said.

  “No, but he should have been,” I said. “Should have been long ago and far away. She would still be alive.”

  “Yeah, if Artie hadn’t been playing games,” Walker said. “Look son, just get some rest now, drop all that voodoo shit, will you? I’ll bring Artie up when he gets here. Holler if you want anything else. I’ll get word to those people, like you said, but these fairy tales don’t do anybody any good, so forget it. I’m going to say my own morning prayers now, I’ll pray for both of them, Didar and Punka, ok?”

  “Thanks, Reverend”, I said. “Try and fit me in too, can you? The Gypsy, the Whore and the Gavur, that’s a neat trinity for your prayers, don’t you think?”

  He didn’t answer, hurried off to his prayers. I lay there, played about with the breakfast, guessed Walker only bought into fairy tales with a happy ending these days. But I figured one fairy tale was as good as another, so I tried the prayer trick thing again.

  I prayed that Didar would be reincarnated as a society girl with a Trust Fund, an apartment on the Upper East Side, maybe overlooking Central Park, or the East River. Summer in the Hamptons. Winter in Aspen. Shopping in London, Paris, Milan. That’s what that beautiful girl deserved, the girl my ghosts had sacrificed. Right now, I didn’t care what I would come back as. I guessed a slime eating slug or cockroach would be a fair trade. And I didn’t reckon much on Punka’s chances for forgiveness, I knew Didar’s ghost wouldn’t be big into absolution, but at least the devil woman would have a host of men to visit her vengeance on, maybe she would leave me to the end of the queue.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  The t
ablets quelled the pain enough to begrudge me a ragged sleep, the Muezzin rallied my senses again around lunchtime. Joannes must have heard me hopping around, came up to see how I was. Turns out he was an interesting guy, originally from Delhi, a software engineer in Silicon Valley before getting the call to become a Minister. And the three of them were quite a team, the third one had been a Chemical Engineer in Chicago. Joannes was much happier now, loved Istanbul, would never go back to his old life. I envied him. He went down and came back with spicy soup and a wifi laptop for me.

  He had a digital subscription to the New York Times, called it up for me, but it was all election stuff, I wasn’t interested. I surfed through some crazy shit about Iran and Israel, saw all those hysterical theories wrapped in religious fanaticism and warped ideology float to the top of the net. Why do they bother, there was enough real life crises without these geeks creating more. Like, a series of scientists connected to the Iranian nuclear programme assassinated, unexplained explosions, spy trials, front page military strikes, what more did they need? But McErlane’s story? I hadn’t decided what to believe yet, just knew he was the perfect fall guy, and so was I.

  The wi-fi signal was weak, kept dropping out. The on-line English language edition of a local newspaper carried a short report on Kaffa. Captain in the 3rd Commando Brigade, based in Siirt, close to the borders with Iran, Iraq, Syria. Transferred to the National Intelligence Organisation, MIT. That’s when he saved my neck in Iraq, but not mentioned in this article. Transferred to Department of Anti Smuggling and Organised Crime. The Inspector was known to be investigating a major heroin smuggling network at the time of his regrettable death. His Commando beret and gloves were placed on his coffin, which was draped with the flag of Turkey. Celebrated hero of the Turkish people. And a beaten docket in my game now.

  Somebody, ex-CIA or an ex-engineer, tapped a bell in the church next door. A sweet but shy coda, no competition for the towering Muezzin or the bravura of Rome. As if this sanctuary was a secret, these Americans too dignified, didn’t need any attention. The wi-fi died.