It was eight minutes past ten when they crawled into Türkeli Caddesi. The light was still on behind the green cross above Number 13. Hawn leapt out and tried the door, which was locked. There was a light on at the back of the shop. As Anna got out behind him, he banged on the glass door, then found the bell-push and gave a long ring.
A girl in a white coat came out of the back, peered at him, and waved him to go away. He signalled to her furiously, his finger still on the bell-push, and again pounded against the door. She came out at last, approaching slowly across the darkened shop; then stood behind the door examining them both through the glass with a hostile expression. Finally she turned the key and eased the door open.
Hawn had his shoulder against the glass, pushed her abruptly back and dragged Anna in after him. The girl was shouting at them as he hurried with Anna across the shop, down the narrow corridor lined with bottles, and reached the unlit staircase where he wasted a few seconds finding the switch.
At any moment he expected either Salak or the man in the white suit to bar his way. He still had Anna by the hand, squeezing it tightly, as he stumbled up the stairs into the long wooden corridor, which was pitch-dark except for a dim sliver of light under Salak’s door.
He had taken only a couple of steps inside when Anna began to scream.
CHAPTER 23
Salak stared down at them both with bulging, bloodshot eyes. His enormous face was distended, shapeless, the colour of an over-ripe plum, and his tongue lolled lewdly out, swollen and black. He was wearing yellow socks and no shoes, and his feet dangled a couple of feet above the floor. The wire noose had cut deep into his throat; his huge body dangled from one of the brazier-like lamps which hung by chains from the ceiling. There was a nasty smell in the room, and Hawn guessed, disgustedly, that at the moment of death the man had lost control of his sphincter.
Anna was still screaming, and there were noisy footsteps outside: then more screams as the girl from the shop appeared in the doorway.
Hawn, cold with shock, began to notice things. Salak’s tight black suit was hitched up about his groin, where both his belt and fly-buttons were undone. On the floor below him, next to the pile of cushions, lay a car battery with two wires trailing off the terminals, each with a crocodile-clip at both ends. Spread around were four little brass cups, containing dregs of coffee, and two ashtrays stuffed with cigarette butts. There was no sign of Salak’s pipe.
Further away, on the desk by the grandfather clock, were several sheets of paper and a gold pen. Salak, before dying, had evidently written something, or been about to write it.
What puzzled Hawn, after the initial shock, was the lack of disorder in the room. Salak had been a comparatively old man, but he must have been immensely strong: yet there was no trace of a struggle. Besides the neatness of the cups and ashtrays, the cushions still lay casually round the walls, some plumped up, others creased from people sitting in them. Had Salak been one of them — drinking coffee with his murderers, suspecting nothing? And how many had there been? Three, four — perhaps half a dozen? A whole gang of them — enough to hold the great wrestler down, and apply the electrodes to his genitals until he agreed to what they wanted? Then they had taken him, without a fight, pronounced sentence on him, and hanged him. It had been an execution, not a murder.
Only a few seconds had passed since they had entered the room. The girl from the shop was now crying uncontrollably. Hawn grabbed her by the wrist and smacked her twice, hard, across both cheeks. She gasped, then began to whimper. He said, ‘Do you speak English?’
She jabbered inarticulately, trying to fight free of his grip.
‘You speak English?’ he said, and began to shake her.
‘Yok, yok!’ she cried; and Anna said, ‘Leave her. She’s hysterical.’
‘She let in the killers. At least, she must have seen them. I want to know how many there were. And whether they were friends or accomplices of Salak.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Tom, leave that to the police. We don’t want to get involved.’
‘We’re bloody involved already! The hotel clerk and the driver will both testify that we came here tonight looking for Salak and the police will want to know why. Anyway, let’s get out of here!’
He had released the girl’s wrist, and stood taking a last look at the big bloated body hanging in the middle of the room; then led the way back down the corridor to the stairs. The girl stumbled between them, sobbing and wailing in Turkish. Hawn walked back down the narrow passage, between the rows of bottles and phials, and out into the darkened shop. Two men were waiting for them. Badly-fitting suits, dark overcoats. He didn’t have to be told what they were — it was a type you could smell half across the room.
One of them, a stout square-shouldered man, stepped forward and flashed a celluloid holder from his overcoat pocket. It was too dark to read the lettering. The man grunted, ‘Police. You come, please.’
The second man, who was clearly the senior of the two — thin-faced, with grey cropped hair — stepped over and opened the door. He had a stiff military bearing, yet he moved swiftly, without appearing to hurry. It was then that something reacted in Hawn’s metabolism: the combination of accumulated tension, too
