The Istanbul Puzzle. Laurence O’Bryan
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‘I think Alek must have gone off and done some exploring, Sean.’
‘He couldn’t have done it in Hagia Sophia. The place is guarded day and night. It’s a museum housing priceless treasures. Their security is tight.’
I took a sip of my coffee, placed the cup on the table and picked up one of the pictures. It was of a floor mosaic, a representation of a Madonna with child in dull blues and pale greens. The faded IH letters near the baby represented the word Jesus. It was a classic and beautiful image, an archetype of Christian art. There was a giant Virgin and Child wall painting in Hagia Sophia, which was like it.
‘Did Alek tell you anything about what he was up to? You were friends weren’t you?’
‘Yeah, we were, but he never said anything about this.’ I motioned at the pictures again. ‘What about you, did he tell you anything? This is a picture of you, isn’t it?’ I pointed at the thumbnail.
‘We went for lunch, Sean. The Consulate likes to keep itself informed about what’s happening in this city. He was a nice guy, but he hardly spoke about his work. And he never said anything about taking pictures anywhere else, before you ask.’
Why hadn’t Alek told me he’d met her, and about these odd photos? Was he planning to when he got back? Or was I being naïve?
‘I’m sure you have experts who’ve examined this already,’ I said, pointing at the picture in my hand. ‘What do they make of it?’
‘It’s an almost classic representation of the Virgin, so I’m told.’
‘What do you mean, almost?’
She moved towards me. I caught a faint lemony perfume smell.
‘Look at the Virgin’s dress. It should have gold stars. And the colours are wrong too. It needs expert examination.’
‘Your people know their stuff.’
‘But not enough,’ she said. ‘We don’t know where the photo was taken.’
She was holding something back though. I could feel it.
‘In a few weeks I might have an answer,’ I said. ‘My Institute has access to a lot of people. Maybe we can figure this one out.’
‘You don’t have to go to all that trouble,’ she said. ‘The greatest living expert on early Christian mosaics of the Virgin is an Orthodox priest. We’re going to contact him, find out what kind of mosaic this is, where it might be found.’
‘We’ll do our own investigation too.’
She looked at me coolly. ‘You’ll get a copy of these images, I promise, Sean, but not yet. They’re part of our evidence chain. Alek’s death was a serious criminal act. We think these pictures have something to do with it.’
I knew where this was going. I’d be lucky if they gave me a copy of these in six months. My best friend had been murdered, I’d been shot at, and I was about to be cut out of what was going to happen next. I felt anger bubbling up inside me.
‘Do your superiors know that Alek and you were close?’ It was a long shot, but it was worth a try.
‘You’ve got to be joking, right?’ Her smile was gone. Her expression was glacier-like now.
I’d met some officials in the last two years who’d tried to protect me, tell me as little as possible, whenever I’d asked about Irene’s death. I wasn’t going to accept all that this time.
‘I bet the British tabloids would love to find out that one of Her Majesty’s Consular officials had been involved with a guy who was beheaded. Wasn’t there a campaign to discredit the Foreign Office a while back for bungling? I’m sure there’s plenty of journalists who’d run with this story.’
She looked calm, unmoved by my anger.
‘Alek was a good friend, not just a colleague. I will find out what happened to him. I’m not going to walk away from this. Neither is my Institute. Not now. Not ever.’
She shook her head slowly, indicating I was heading the wrong way. I didn’t care.
‘We consulted with the Greek Orthodox community when we planned this project. So it won’t be hard to find this expert of yours and a few of our own.’ I reached for the photo of the mosaic and picked it up.
‘And I’m sure the Turkish media would love to know about our research material being confiscated, an important UNESCO project being interfered with by the British government.’
Now she pointed a finger at me.
‘I don’t like being threatened, Sean. But I’ll put it down to what happened last night, for your sake.’
‘You can put it down to whatever you like, after I tell the media about this.’ I waved the photo in front of her face.
We looked at each other. Her expression was a mask of grim determination.
‘Your Institute is involved in something it shouldn’t have been,’ she said.
‘You’re talking crap. And you know it. But I don’t care what lies you make up about us. This is too personal.’ An annoying jingle from what sounded like an early morning TV show came up from the apartment below.
I felt a slight breeze on my skin. It barely alleviated the rising heat.
‘You’re upset,’ she said. ‘I’ll see what I can do. But I’m not making any promises.’ She stood up and went inside.
I waited. It was getting hotter by the minute and it was still only 8:30.
I shifted my chair around. A thick pad of lined green paper lay discarded under the table. I imagined Isabel or her colleagues sitting here taking notes.
She had a frown on her face when she came back half an hour later. ‘You can come with me, if you want. Someone thinks it might be a good idea to have you along.’
She sat down opposite me.
‘When are you going?’
‘You’ll see.’
‘I love being kept in the dark.’
She spoke slowly. ‘I can show you this.’ She placed a netbook on the table in front of me. The sound of a car beeping angrily echoed from the street below.
She pointed at the screen.
On it was an English language version of a Turkish newspaper’s website. The top of the screen read ‘Zamiyete – Breaking News’ in big letters.
Below the banner there was a picture of the iconic dome of Hagia Sophia. The headline underneath read:
‘Greek Plot to Steal Hagia Sophia’s Treasures.’ I pulled the screen towards me. The article was about Alek.
It claimed that a shadowy group of Greek businessmen had been trying for years to penetrate the tight security at Hagia Sophia, and that the man whose decapitated body had been found in its grounds was connected to them. It claimed that man had been murdered by fundamentalists who wanted Hagia Sophia to become a mosque again, against Atatürk’s explicit wishes.
The man who’d died, the article went on to say, had used the cover of working on an official UNESCO project to conduct unauthorised electronic tests at Hagia Sophia.
The article also claimed that there’d been speculation in the Greek media that the Labarum of Constantine, a banner used to rally the first Roman Christian legions, was one of the artefacts being sought by the Greek businessmen.
‘I thought you said your little project wasn’t controversial?’ She sounded tired.
What concerned me though was what they were saying about Alek.
‘I don’t know anything about Greek businessmen. And we weren’t doing any unauthorised electronic