Death by Design Read Online Free

the possible existence of Mr Ülker. Only when he’d finished the call did he remember the strange word on the fragment of paper and wonder whether he should have passed that by İkmen too.
    It wasn’t until later on that evening that the small fragment of paper from the back wall of the handbag factory found its way on to Commissioner Ardıç’s desk. Someone at the Forensic Institute had recognised what the word was. Now, in light of that, İkmen and Süleyman’s superior was talking to a Mr Nightingale from the British Consulate. A thin, dark man whose command of the Turkish language was second only to that of his command of Arabic, Mr Nightingale didn’t actually have a job title at the consulate. But Commissioner Ardıç knew what he was even if he didn’t really know who he was.
    ‘Epping is a suburb of London,’ Nightingale said without even bothering to look at the fragment. ‘Your forensic man visited it at some time, did he?’
    ‘She,’ Commissioner Ardıç corrected. ‘Apparently studied in London.’
    ‘Epping’s at the far eastern end of the Central Line, where the underground system hits the edge of the countryside.’ He leaned over and looked at the fragment through its polythene bag. ‘Looks like it’s been torn from a tube map.’
    ‘It was pinned up on the wall of the illegal factory we discovered in Tarlabaşı,’ Ardıç said breathlessly as he attempted to lean forward over his immense stomach in order to tap the ash off the end of his cigar. Eventually, under the somewhat scornful gaze of the Englishman, he made it. ‘The one with your passports in the safe.’
    ‘Hardly my passports,’ Nightingale responded acidly. But then he smiled and said, ‘But I know what you mean. This was the place where the boy detonated himself after full jihadi battle cry, wasn’t it?’
    The question was rhetorical, he knew what the answer was only too well. But his tone made Ardıç smart. Though very far from being a fundamentalist, he was nevertheless a Muslim and he felt the contempt in the other man’s voice sharply.
    ‘One of my officers was wounded,’ he said.
    ‘Lucky not to be killed,’ Nightingale said. ‘But anyway, in light of this I will have to contact London again and it may well be that someone might want to come out and speak to your team.’
    Ardıç shrugged. Cooperation between British and Turkish police forces was nothing new and of course the Europeans would be accommodated.
    ‘On the face of it, a copy of the London Underground map on the wall of a factory transporting illegals into the EU would seem fairly innocuous,’ the Englishman continued. ‘One could argue that it would be very useful for them to memorise it in case they fetched up in London all on their own. Except that of course that is highly unlikely. As you and I both know, Commissioner, illegals only ever really go out alone once they’ve managed to escape those who have enslaved them to work in brothels, factories producing counterfeit goods or lap-dancing clubs.’
    Ardıç nodded his agreement.
    ‘The passports bother me,’ Nightingale said. ‘There is a discreet investigation underway across all of our UK offices as we speak. But what really concerns me,’ he picked up the bagged fragment and looked at it again, ‘is this.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Well, call me a ghastly pessimist if you must but when I put together the concept of a young man shouting “Allahu Akbar” with a map of the London Underground, I tend to feel my blood freeze.’
    Ardıç took a long drag on his cigar and then nodded his head in agreement. On 7 July 2005 a group of fundamentalist suicide bombers had brought London Underground to a standstill. More importantly, they had killed not only themselves but a lot of innocent bystanders too. Like İstanbul, London bore the battle scars of numerous terrorist attacks.
    At length, Ardıç said, ‘I understand.’ Then with a sigh of resignation he added, ‘Get back to your people in