The Istanbul Puzzle by Laurence O’Bryan Page B

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.

Chapter 12
    We arrived at one of the British Consulate’s guest apartments after midnight, and it was past 1:00 AM before I closed my eyes in one of the spartan, marble-floored bedrooms.
    I didn’t sleep well. A few hours after drifting off I sat up and looked around, memories of being shot at playing through my mind. I felt angry as the early morning sunlight filtered through the blinds. The air in the room was humid and already heavy. I’d turned off the air conditioning unit by the window before going to sleep.
    One question had lodged in my mind. Were those bastards still looking for me?
    The apartment had a balcony with a stunning view. Not surprising, I suppose, seeing as how it was on the tenth floor and overlooking where the glittering Sea of Marmara met the choppy Bosphorus channel.
    I had a shower in the small bathroom attached to my room. I stayed longer than usual, as the tension of the last twelve hours dissipated into the water. When I was dry and dressed I went out onto the balcony.
    The far shore of the Bosphorus, the Asian side of Istanbul, literally another continent, swam far off, in the early morning heat haze. Directly in front of me a variety of ships, freighters and tankers were making their way in two distinct lines, like foam-flecked water insects, travelling into and out of the sun-dappled channel of the Bosphorus.
    Isabel had told me the night before that the apartment block overlooked the old Byzantine port of Bucoleon, the sea port that had served the Roman Emperor Justinian’s imperial palace. The shimmering sea and infinite azure sky must have been as alluring back then as they were now.
    As I was admiring the view, Isabel joined me. She was carrying a tray with croissants, butter, jam, coffee, warm milk and pale brown sugar.
    Her black hair was undone, flowing over her shoulders, but she still looked businesslike. And her expression was serious.
    ‘Did you sleep?’ she