City of the Lost

I

While Karin bought herself a pair of plimsolls, Iain borrowed her mobile to call his London office. He referred Maria to his address book then told her which of his Cypriot contacts might know the home address of Metin Volkan and asked her to call him back as soon as she’d found it out.

It was a short walk to the border, a pedestrianized alley in which two men in blue overalls with long-handled rollers were whitewashing away graffiti, while a border guard with hooded eyes lost a private battle against the urge to yawn, then shifted weight from leg to leg.

Iain’s recent troubles in Antioch might have earned him a place on an immigration watch-list, so he and Karin joined different queues. The woman officer glared at him. But then she glared at everyone. She held his passport beneath a scanner then stamped it like it had jilted her. Then she turned her glare onto the family behind.

Maria came through with Volkan’s address. They Googled directions then hurried along cobbled streets as shadows inched up facing buildings. Everything was shabbier this side of the border, at least until they crossed the road into an enclave of expensive homes. A policeman was standing outside one of the front doors. Iain took Karin by the hand and walked up to him. ‘Is Professor Volkan at home?’ he asked in Turkish.

The policeman grunted. ‘What’s it to you?’

‘I used to be his student.’

‘He’s got someone with him.’

‘Please. This is my fiancée, Karin. I’ve told her so much about the Professor, she really wants to meet him. And we’re only here for the day.’

The policeman didn’t look convinced but he knocked all the same. Then he knocked again, more loudly. There was shuffling inside, then the door opened. ‘Yes?’ asked Volkan irritably.

‘It’s me, Professor,’ said Iain, speaking rapidly to prevent Volkan from interrupting him. ‘Iain Black. And this is my fiancée Karin. I’ve told her so much about you. She insisted we come to meet you.’

His smile was forced, his eyes elsewhere. ‘Charmed,’ he said. ‘But I’m afraid this is a very bad—’

‘Please, Professor,’ said Iain. ‘Five minutes.’ He switched to English. ‘It’s not only to meet Karin. I’ve also got a question about my thesis. On the Deep State, you’ll remember. On the Strategy of Tension. On how bombing campaigns were blamed on innocent parties to facilitate a coup.’

The professor stared hard at him for several seconds. ‘Iain Black,’ he said. ‘You used to wear a goatee.’

‘I was a student. Students do crazy things.’

‘How good to see you again. And your fiancée. Karin, wasn’t it? Come in. Come in.’ He held the door wide for them, closed it behind them. Then he folded his arms. ‘You have one minute,’ he said. ‘Please tell me what this is about.’

II

Zehra did her best to make it to the school before the end of Katerina’s day, but her legs were tired and wouldn’t obey her, and she found herself arriving a full twelve minutes late. Fortunately, there was still a knot of children, teachers and parents there, though the flutters of panic didn’t go away until she saw Katerina with another girl and an elegant looking woman in long blue skirts and a gorgeous cream jacket. She hurried straight up to them to explain herself, but she was wheezing too hard to speak.

‘You must be Katerina’s grandmother,’ said the woman. ‘So nice to meet you at last.’

Zehra nodded and tried a smile but still she couldn’t speak. ‘I thought I was going to miss her,’ she managed finally.

‘You mustn’t worry,’ said the woman. ‘Everyone’s late from time to time. Someone will always stay around until everyone’s collected who should be. And it’s been a pleasure to spend time with Katerina again. Especially as I don’t suppose we’ll be seeing her so much from now on.’

‘How do you mean?’

The woman smiled brightly. ‘Oh. We’re the ones who usually get to look after her when your son is away. But now that you’re back, I don’t suppose we’ll be needed so much any more. Which is a real shame for us, because our girls get on so well together.’

Zehra looked blankly at her. ‘You look after Katerina when my son is away?’

The woman smiled warily and screwed up her nose as if she sensed she’d made some kind of mistake, but wasn’t sure what. ‘Someone has to, right?’ she said. ‘All the travelling he does. And what with everything else.’

Zehra thanked her then took Katerina by the hand and led her off along the pavement. Her cheeks were flushed, her heart was roiled. Her wretch of a son had tricked her! And, to make matters worse, Katerina’s guilty expression made it perfectly clear that she’d been in on it too.

‘Don’t be upset,’ begged Katerina. ‘He was just sad you wouldn’t talk to him. He missed you. I missed you. I had a grandmother and I’d never even met her. Anyway, we were worried that you were lonely.’

Zehra looked away. It took her a few moments to compose herself, then she looked around again. ‘Me lonely?’ she said. ‘Get away with you, you little scamp.’

‘Please don’t tell him I told you,’ said Katerina. ‘He can get really angry, you know.’

‘Not with me, he can’t,’ said Zehra. She settled her hand upon Katerina’s head and looked both ways to make sure the street was clear before they crossed. Then she bought them each an orange-flavoured iced-lolly, and they licked them in companionable silence as they walked together back through the park and home.

III

One minute won Iain and Karin five. Five earned them an invitation into Volkan’s study, where he introduced them to another man tapping away at his smartphone. The fortuitousness of their timing quickly became apparent. They shared stories, suspicions, discoveries. Theories were mooted. Some failed. Others gained traction, were revised and honed. The room grew dark enough that Volkan turned on the wall-lights, reflections sharpening in the window panes.

Volkan took it upon himself to sum up their progress, like the natural chairman he was. He put his index finger on a photograph of Yasin Baykam. ‘What do we know about this man?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘We know he served alongside Turkey’s current Chief of the General Staff, who led the advance into Famagusta as a young tank officer back in 1974. We know he used to be a member of the Nationalist Movement Party, whose youth wing was notoriously close to the Grey Wolves; and that he and his friends had grey wolves tattooed upon their forearms. We think that his sympathies mellowed with age and may have changed altogether after meeting the former owners of his home and farm. We know he came to one of my meetings two months ago, but held back. And that he then came to another meeting last month, and this time offered to help.’

‘What changed between the two meetings?’ asked Iain.

‘The bombs grew worse,’ said Volkan. ‘As did the backlash. They destroyed any hope of Ankara agreeing to hand back Varosha. And yet people still blamed us for them.’

‘So let’s assume that was the real purpose of the bombs,’ said Karin. ‘To make Varosha politically toxic. And Baykam realized this somehow. Maybe he recognized the methodology, or maybe one of his old Grey Wolf friends confided in him, not realizing his sympathies had changed. So he came to see you speak that first time, perhaps to assess whether he could trust you or not. But he wavered. Then the bombs got worse and he came back.’

‘Why not just tell me what he knew?’ asked Volkan.

Iain shook his head. ‘It’s one thing to disagree with or even go up against someone you once fought alongside,’ he said. ‘But no soldier would ever turn in a former squad-mate.’

‘Okay,’ said Karin. ‘Baykam asks you how he can help. You tell him you need money. He’s not rich himself, but somehow he knows where there are artefacts.’

Andreas nodded. ‘Famagusta’s dotted with old caves and burial chambers. My great-grandfather used to hunt for them when he was a kid.’

‘He also needs to sell them,’ said Karin. ‘So he does his homework then contacts my old boss and the Bejjanis and invites them to Daphne to bid.’

‘Why Daphne? Why not here?’

‘Misdirection,’ said Karin. ‘I can’t speak for Bejjani, but Nathan knew his stuff. Give him a decent thread to follow, he’d likely have found the site for himself in no time.’

‘And Baykam grew up in Antioch,’ added Andreas. ‘He’d have felt at home there.’

‘Okay,’ said Iain. ‘But the antiquities police got onto him somehow.’

‘Not onto him,’ said Karin. ‘Onto Nathan. He almost got caught buying on the black market last time he was here. I’ll bet they had him on some kind of watch-list.’

Volkan stood up, a little agitated. ‘Yes. They set a team to watch him. They followed him to Daphne then discovered he was there to meet Baykam. But Baykam once served in the same tank as the current Chief of the General Staff. In Turkey, you don’t go around arresting old friends of the Chief of the General Staff, not if you value your career. So they notified him as a courtesy. For some reason, this news spooked Yilmaz so badly that he ordered the Daphne hotel bombed before Baykam could be arrested.’

Iain frowned. ‘Why not just spike the investigation?’

‘He’s army,’ answered Volkan. ‘He has no jurisdiction over the police. Besides, if we’re right about this, they were running a bombing campaign anyway. It would have been two for the price of one.’

Iain nodded. ‘So he has Asena bomb the hotel and blame it on you guys. But then I send footage of her and her friend to the police. There was a military intelligence officer at my interrogation. I’ll bet he tipped off Yilmaz, who set her after me. And they also decided to launch their coup at once, before word of it could get out.’

Volkan nodded soberly. ‘And your evidence for this?’

‘It’s how it happened,’ said Iain. ‘Something like it anyway.’

‘Maybe. But your evidence? There are far too many holes in this story for us to take it public and get heard, let alone believed, on a day like today. Where are these artefacts you mentioned? How did Baykam get his hands on them? Why would the Lion care? What’s it to him if someone he knew forty years ago got arrested? You have to understand: General Yilmaz is a hero in Turkey. A national icon. Above the fray. And who are we? A bunch of trouble-makers with every incentive to invent stories to clear our names or promote our causes. If we’re to get people to believe us, we’ll need to give them proof.’

‘And how the hell do we get that?’ asked Karin.

No one answered. Energy seeped from the room. It was Andreas who finally spoke. ‘Zehra took a whole suitcase full of papers from Yasin’s house, not just these photos. I didn’t see anything else in them, but then I didn’t know half this stuff at the time. So maybe we missed something.’

Iain nodded. ‘Let’s go look,’ he said.