Free Deadline by Barbara Nadel

eleven. The young prince!’ the novelist said.
    Süleyman, who was now at İ kmen’s side, said, ‘This is odd.’
    İ kmen looked at him.
    ‘Odd that Lale should find the body,’ Süleyman continued. ‘Ithought she was supposed to be leading the other team.’
    İ kmen took his arm and led him to one side. ‘I want you to keep everyone away from her,’ he whispered.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because the blood on her hands is real,’ İ kmen said.
    For a moment Süleyman seemed to wonder whether he’d heard İ kmen correctly, but when he realised that he had, he got to work rounding up members of his team who were nearby and assembling them next to a group of tables in a corner. And although other people did come up and attempt to speak to the novelist, İ kmen managed to get them to move away so that he could speak to her.
    ‘The young prince is just a fiction, Mrs Aktar,’ he said. ‘Do you mean the boy who’s playing that part? Is he dead in your room?’
    Lale Aktar moved her head slowly up and down once and then she whispered, ‘On my bed.’
    Later, Çetin İ kmen would bitterly regret the fact that he didn’t call for back-up there and then, but like everyone in that place, he was still half in a fantasy. He’d have to at least check room 411. Süleyman saw him leave the Kubbeli Saloon and followed him.
    Years before,when he’d been a young private, Ersu Bey had had an accident. His company had been on patrol just outside the eastern city of Mardin in an area known to be rich in archaeological sites. Over the centuries Mardin and its environs had been conquered by the Byzantines, the Persians, the Arabs and the Turks, and all of them had left evidence of their civilisations behind them. His commander had told them to be careful where they trod, but Ersu had taken his eyes away from where he was walking just for a second, to look back at the fortress city of Mardin, and had fallen through the earth into what had turned out to be a Persian cistern. Then, as now, he had been entombed, alone. Then he’d broken his leg and now, as he recalled those old events of the late seventies, his right calf duly began to ache.
    It had taken his brothers in arms the best part of a day to get him out. The roof of the cistern had been unstable, hence his fall, and they’d had to first locate where the firm ground was and then send men down to get him. Because he’d broken his leg, lifting him out had not been easy. He still remembered how claustrophobic he had felt in the cistern, how scared he’d been and the pain he’d suffered. His broken leg had been fixed and he had made a rapid recovery, but it had always been a struggle not to limp ever since. Now he was trapped again and this time it was not in a damp cistern but in a cold fridge.
    Ersu knew that ifhe cried out no one would be able to hear him. The vindictive or careless night staff (he couldn’t decide which they were) wouldn’t let him out until either they’d had their fun or one of them needed milk, butter, cream or cheese for some reason. Intellectually Ersu knew that he wasn’t in mortal danger. Had he been trapped in one of the freezers, that would have been another matter. But he was cold and uncomfortable and in spite of the fact that someone had to let him out in the end, he felt scared. Alone with his own thoughts was not a place that Ersu Bey liked to be and there was a limit to the number of times one could distract oneself by reading butter wrappers and cream cartons. After a while he began to sing. Strangely, the songs that came to mind most readily were some of Stevie Wonder’s greatest hits from the seventies.
    The room that had once been Agatha Christie’s favourite was larger than the one the Pera Palas had allocated to Çetin İ kmen. Decorated in modern pale tones of white, pale grey and warm gold, the room was nevertheless furnished in dark wood and decorated with pictures and articles about the famous author, as well as a desk supporting